ILPlumber

We are presently trimming out a high school. No hurry, school starts Friday. Anyway, I walk down the hall into the home ec. area. Guys are working in there I've never seen. Doing plumbing and setting cabinets. Visited with the guy for a while. He showed me how proud he was of himself to be able to connect to the lead drain with a fernco He cut out the beautiful wiped lead drain and vent that some dead guy made from scratch and threw in PVC. There is no way this guy is licensed. There were 5 of them and only 1 of me so I just let it go. I got 5' down the hall and called the local inspector. He's coming first thing in the morning. Next is to make sure he's paying prevailing wage. I hope the inspector shows.

service guy

Today I ran into something like this and I have decided that from this day forward I reporting ALL people I see doing illegal plumbing....including even my own customers if they decide to 'do it themselves' because I am 'too expensive'.

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Plumberman

Takes alot of skill to throw in the ole frenco... I hope he does show up. Wish I could see their faces.

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Chad-LJP 6656-LMG Installer/Brazer
UA Local 659

ILPlumber

We have to protect our trade. When folks are busy they tend not to care if some schmo does little crap. But, when things get slow they wish they woulda said somethin. Kinda like drainlaying around here. We gave it away and it's gone forever.

Inspectors need more power. No fawkin around with court cases. Get the ticket book out and write em one on the spot. Then if they wanna fight go to court.

Plumberman

Well said. I believe in protecting our trade as well. This is my meal card. I wil give it up to the hacks when I am floating around upstairs.... untill then I am gonna roast em!

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Chad-LJP 6656-LMG Installer/Brazer
UA Local 659

GrumpyPlumber

I'll skip the details, that just made my day.

Hate being so synical, but at the steady rate I lose work to DIY and hacks, it's good to hear we still have some solidarity.

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Song Dog

Atta Boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whos your inspector up there.
btw- what part on IL are you from, I forgot.

In Christ,

Song Dog

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Teaching my kids to hunt and shoot-PRICELESS!

uaplumber

Go get em! That is what we all need to do. Report, report, report. Until someone listens and puts a stop to these "instant experts".

Alan

I have to say that I for one am not totally opposed to DIY. I think that the government has way too much control over what you can do with YOUR property. I am not against people needing to educate themselves before they do the work in order to keep themselves safe. For most people this is way too much work, and would rather just pay someone to do it. I am like that most of the time. I do think that DIY does take some of our business away, but hasn't it always? I think you just see it more now. Besides, how many calls do you get where someone says "Yeah, I went to home depot a couple weeks ago, and got something to fix this with, and it's leaking again already, so i decided to call a real pro." We get that a lot!

What I do have a real problem with is people trying to make a profit by flying under the radar. If you can't play by the rules, then it's time to forfeit the game. You are not special.

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Journeyman Plumber

Double-A

There is nothing wrong with DIY, but in this case, its a high school in question. There is absolutely no reason that unlicensed people should be doing any of the work there.

As an aside, when I was in my first year of apprenticeship, one of the old plumbers came to give a demonstration on lead. He brought some lead sheeting and a white gasoline blowtorch and his lead working tools.

He proceeded to show us how to make 4" pipe from sheet lead, how to make 3/4 inch water pipe and how to cut a wye into it and wipe the joint to seal it in.

None of us were able to do any of the work properly, but he made it look so simple. The next week he brought an old buddy of his, another old plumber, and the two of them did a burned lead joint.

We have all but lost those skills in most places south of the Mason Dixon line and west of the Mississippi.

The last burned joint we had to do we imported two union plumbers from Boston for three days to make repairs to an acid line in an old battery remanufacturer in North Little Rock. Those guys were both in their 50's. We paid through the nose and treated those two like royalty while they were here.

The Olympics are wonderful, and I truly respect the folks that train and dedicate their lives to mastering their sport, but my true heros are the guys that dedicate their lives to teaching the young the real skills of our profession. We could have cut all that acid line out and replaced it with glass to the tune of a few 100k, but we convinced the owners that it was cheaper for them to just let us fly in some talent to repair and replace the worn sections to the tune of about 30K total.

The supply house needed a heavy duty truck to deliver the lead for that job. They contracted with an armored truck service. No one else had a small enough vehicle with stout enough suspension to move that much lead into the tight spots we needed it delivered to. We didn't want to handle it too much and waste time bending and deforming the rolls.

I know I'll never be part of another job like that, and I'm glad to not work in such a toxic and awful place, but those two guys from Boston probably saved several jobs for the workers there at that small factory due to nothing but cost savings. And all because someone took the time to teach them one of the most rare of plumbing skills.