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Comment by natch | Hacker News Reader

First, I don't know if this is really HN material, but that being said, plumbers get paid what they do because they deal with ridiculously nasty stuff, and they have to be on call 24/7 (or go out of business). They also need decent people skills. And insurance ($$$).

And they need to get really dirty sometimes, and the people who live with them have to be OK with that (a shower will only get you so far; there are mental barriers to having sex with someone who just had their arm elbow deep in a nice blend of rancid oil, mold, and shit).

If all that is OK with you, go for it.

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It's HN material because it deals with the kind of life decisions IT people make every day, based around money and satisfaction of work and so on.

Besides that, there is almost not such a thing as "HN material." Within a super broad range, anything goes so long as it's interesting to the community.

Plumbers are awesome and I have a great regard for them. When I was looking at buying a house, we had an inspection done. The home inspector found water in the crawlspace and he made excuses about why he couldn't go down there to make a determination of the cause. We called up a plumber and they came for a free estimate. The guy wore a disposable coverall, went down into the water and found the source of the problem. The repair costs would have been too much so we canceled our offer. Next house we did buy however, we took an opportunity to use the same plumbers for any improvement work done.

> they have to be on call 24/7 (or go out of business)

This probably depends on who you work for. Local plumbers service I used, which basically distributes work among its workers is available 8am-8pm only and still charges the same as everyone else. Waiting time 1-2 days for callout.

I am talking about laying down new PVC pipes stuff. And no - I have to wait for plumber to come over to give me an estimate. I am not talking about ones who are on 24/7 calls and dealing with nasty stuff.

Being picky is not going to get you very far.

Someone lists themselves as a plumber, they'll be called for whatever plumbing job is available. If you do the dirty jobs they'll hire you for the nice jobs too. If you refuse the dirty jobs then those plumbers that do do the dirty jobs will will end up running off with your potential customers. Especially in the early years you won't be having too much work that you can afford to send away the jobs (and thus the customers) that you don't want.

You want to build up a reputation that says you are a good plumber, not a picky plumber that doesn't want to get his hands dirty. (In fact, that's one of the reasons plumbers can charge what they do.)

edit: this comment is a nice example of what I mean: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8120404

The reason why poster from this comment you referred called same plumber - because they did dirty work for free. If they would charge $250/hr - $350/hr - it could turn differently (could, not necessary would)

They got the job because they came, showed they had what it takes to get the job done and then took their lumps because they said their estimate was free (so they stood by their word). That's the start of a fruitful business relationship which you can see for yourself worked out well for them.

If they would have charged for their estimate then the job would have probably gone to another plumber. Free estimates are fairly standard for plumbers and will reduce your profit margin, but it is a long term investment in the relationship.

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