I had a clogged pipe due to age (the house and pipes are 100 years old), and I needed to replace the system instead of snaking rusty pipes.
So, I received a bid for the rough in from my kitchen to a new sewer line I had put in about 5 months ago. It came in at $1,850.
I thought that was astronomical, so I got another bid, and the second guy quoted me $2,000!
I went with the first plumber because the second guy couldn't look me in the eye when he spoke to me (shady).
The first guy told me he'd knock off $400 if I dug the hole for the sewer line tie in. I did; it took two hours.
So, the plumber finished the job in 4 hours. If I calculated parts at $600 (this is from the second plumber's estimate), his labor cost was $212.50/hour!!!
He did a great job, but is this typical? Do plumbers make this much money??
thats why people need to work in the trades for a minute....learn how to do things yourself and see why contractors make so much cash..... i was an electrical helper back in '97 or '98 and i was making $15 an hour and i didnt have my b.a. yet.... i pulled wire and wired up plugs and switches.... after graduating with my degree, my first arch job paid me $10 and hour and i had to pay all my taxes....wtf..... then the next job was for $12 an hour... then got into construction and made $25 and hour..... go figure..... .... money talks once you have a debt.... too bad my knees are bad and i cant really do heavy construction anymore.....
reminds me of my boss. one thing he does when someone gives him a per-job estimate is immediately do a quick estimate of the amount of hours it would take to complete the job, multiplied by how much the sub should be charging per hour. if the difference betweeen the estimates is huge then he calls them out...
seems fairly typical with plumbers. it's good to insulate yourself by at least having an idea of the materials cost. when i've hired plumbers i've tried to rough this out by going to home depot and pricing out every little piece and part i think would be needed to do the job. this at least gives a ballpark, though i suspect the plumber would be paying less at a supply house than HD charges. i had a plumber try to tell me there was no difference in price between CPVC and copper piping because higher oil prices were making plastic pipe more expensive. at that point I knew he was lying and sent him on his way.
that price sounds about right...but i'm not sure that it's really fair to say he's making $212/hour. from your perspective as a client this was clearly a profitable job for him. however, from his perspective as a businessman it may very well have not been as lucrative (how much time did he spend on the estimate, shopping for parts, traveling to the jobsite, etc)...and even if it was a profitable job there may be other jobs that yielded very little profit if not a loss. and on top of that, he's got to figure in the risk of the unkown, i.e., who knows what is down there once he starts digging up those 100 year old pipes. he's probably experienced enough to know that his profit could quickly go south with just a little bit of bad luck. maybe he's making a lot of money but it's also possible that he isn't.
anyhow, having said that, i continually find it comical the way that many architects (especially youngters/interns) complain about how little they are paid and continue to operate in a fantasy world where it's their right to make a lot of money...or at least enough to buy all of those fancy toys they see in the magazines. ironically, if they had become plumbers, electricians, etc. they could probably afford much of that shit. of course then they probably wouldn't care about it either. go figure.
puddles, that makes sense. thanks for that perspective.
As an architecture intern, i never expected to make much money. i apply the "starving artist" principle to pay. i could go back to my coat and tie job and make six figures in five years, but then i'd also be losing my soul.
Plumber hourly rates probably are calculated in a manner similar to architect hourly rates - i.e. the raw salary rate is multiplied by a factor to cover salary overhead (vacation, health insurance, etc.) and office overhead (rent, tools, truck, phones, secretary, advertising, etc.) plus profit.
I'm pretty sure your plumber isn't billing 40+ hours each week at over $200 each. While your plumber may make a six-figure income if self-employed, he still spends a lot of his time clearing clogged toilets. Seems like a fair deal to me.
Dec 29, 07 7:31 pm ·
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Plumbers - $212.50/hr????
I had a clogged pipe due to age (the house and pipes are 100 years old), and I needed to replace the system instead of snaking rusty pipes.
So, I received a bid for the rough in from my kitchen to a new sewer line I had put in about 5 months ago. It came in at $1,850.
I thought that was astronomical, so I got another bid, and the second guy quoted me $2,000!
I went with the first plumber because the second guy couldn't look me in the eye when he spoke to me (shady).
The first guy told me he'd knock off $400 if I dug the hole for the sewer line tie in. I did; it took two hours.
So, the plumber finished the job in 4 hours. If I calculated parts at $600 (this is from the second plumber's estimate), his labor cost was $212.50/hour!!!
He did a great job, but is this typical? Do plumbers make this much money??
thats why people need to work in the trades for a minute....learn how to do things yourself and see why contractors make so much cash..... i was an electrical helper back in '97 or '98 and i was making $15 an hour and i didnt have my b.a. yet.... i pulled wire and wired up plugs and switches.... after graduating with my degree, my first arch job paid me $10 and hour and i had to pay all my taxes....wtf..... then the next job was for $12 an hour... then got into construction and made $25 and hour..... go figure..... .... money talks once you have a debt.... too bad my knees are bad and i cant really do heavy construction anymore.....
b
reminds me of my boss. one thing he does when someone gives him a per-job estimate is immediately do a quick estimate of the amount of hours it would take to complete the job, multiplied by how much the sub should be charging per hour. if the difference betweeen the estimates is huge then he calls them out...
seems fairly typical with plumbers. it's good to insulate yourself by at least having an idea of the materials cost. when i've hired plumbers i've tried to rough this out by going to home depot and pricing out every little piece and part i think would be needed to do the job. this at least gives a ballpark, though i suspect the plumber would be paying less at a supply house than HD charges. i had a plumber try to tell me there was no difference in price between CPVC and copper piping because higher oil prices were making plastic pipe more expensive. at that point I knew he was lying and sent him on his way.
that price sounds about right...but i'm not sure that it's really fair to say he's making $212/hour. from your perspective as a client this was clearly a profitable job for him. however, from his perspective as a businessman it may very well have not been as lucrative (how much time did he spend on the estimate, shopping for parts, traveling to the jobsite, etc)...and even if it was a profitable job there may be other jobs that yielded very little profit if not a loss. and on top of that, he's got to figure in the risk of the unkown, i.e., who knows what is down there once he starts digging up those 100 year old pipes. he's probably experienced enough to know that his profit could quickly go south with just a little bit of bad luck. maybe he's making a lot of money but it's also possible that he isn't.
anyhow, having said that, i continually find it comical the way that many architects (especially youngters/interns) complain about how little they are paid and continue to operate in a fantasy world where it's their right to make a lot of money...or at least enough to buy all of those fancy toys they see in the magazines. ironically, if they had become plumbers, electricians, etc. they could probably afford much of that shit. of course then they probably wouldn't care about it either. go figure.
plumbers etc. just hit their peak salary potential much earlier...don't know that they necessarily make more over the long run.
puddles, that makes sense. thanks for that perspective.
As an architecture intern, i never expected to make much money. i apply the "starving artist" principle to pay. i could go back to my coat and tie job and make six figures in five years, but then i'd also be losing my soul.
there's something more than money out there
somehow i doubt that.
i think there's just space-dust and sub-atomic particles.
other than that, nope, just money.
Yale College of Plumbing is accepting applications.
some of the smartest people I know are plumbers. One of the dumbest people Ive ever met went to Yale, so goes to show ya...
I don't have any problem with em'. People of all walks of life are dumbasses.
worth every sent their paid!
Plumber hourly rates probably are calculated in a manner similar to architect hourly rates - i.e. the raw salary rate is multiplied by a factor to cover salary overhead (vacation, health insurance, etc.) and office overhead (rent, tools, truck, phones, secretary, advertising, etc.) plus profit.
I'm pretty sure your plumber isn't billing 40+ hours each week at over $200 each. While your plumber may make a six-figure income if self-employed, he still spends a lot of his time clearing clogged toilets. Seems like a fair deal to me.
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