Article Directory :: Business - General Articles

Don't Hang on the Pipes: The Plumbing Business is Serious

By Scott Rodgers

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 03Oct2009 Word count: 571 Viewed: 275 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

You know the saying: boys will be boys. That's why taking a 10-year-old out on a plumbing job is not such a good idea in general. However, you might learn a little bit about how not to tackle a particular problem, or why your crew always seems to be in the middle of a genuine mess.

It started with a simple elementary school job shadow day: my sister brought her 10-year-old son Bobby to watch me and my crew fool around with the old copper in a foreclosed rowhouse downtown. The place was a mess, it was hard to get to, and the street parking situation was terrible, all of which tended to put most of us in a bad mood right off.

I was checking the hot and cold lines and observing how everything was tied to the public waterline while my right hand man, Hank, stomped around upstairs. Bobby was dutifully following my actions, watching me putter around with the toolbox and arrange the radio for optimal classic rock blast... at least for a while. But by the time I got down to assessing the joining of some of the homes water systems, Bobby had moved on to clinking metal object against the protruding sewer line behind me.

I told him to knock it off and return to some basic note taking, only to turn around a few minutes later (I could've sworn it was seconds) on hearing a rough, jagged sound. It turned out to be the sound of ripping gypsum, as Bobby pulled on an exposed piece of conduit, tearing a large whole in the drywall. After I sent the kid down and had a stern talk with them, I returned to the job, thinking everything was okay. But I soon found I couldn't leave this kid alone for 2 seconds. The problem was, he thought the internal structure of the old house was a jungle gym!

After the third offense, when I banished him to the third story bedroom with his hand-held Nintendo games, I started thinking about the correlation between the messed up basement wall and some of the things I'd been seeing when looking at Hank's work, particularly on a Monday. Cockeyed faucets, slanting PVC, and thin copper lines that bore the marks of a good sound thrashing were common at our job sites.

What it all meant to me was that Bobby's errant behaviour symbolized the way some plumbers handle delicate systems roughly, sometimes dismantling more than they fix. No, it's not rocket science, but it is a science, and a firm, steady hand can mean the difference between an excellent installation and something that looks like a Halloween party.

Hank and I eventually settled the issue, but not without some serious wrangling over specific methodologies that we disagreed on. I eventually won out, and the work quality on the job did seem to improve. We basically started paying more attention to the pressure that we put on the system as we approached repairs. And all of this improvement would not have been possible without the help of a little tyke who couldn't keep from disturbing the inner workings of an old house. We could all learn a lot from situations like that one: keep an eye on your crew, because really, they're just boys grown up. Without some ground rules, your job site can easily start to look like a playground.

EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here

More articles by Scott Rodgers

Free Report!
Ten Essential Secrets Of Article Marketing ... Grab Your Free
Copy Now:

Need Content?
Regular Top Quality Content for your Blog, Ezine or Website ...
Delivered Direct,
For Free!
Click For Details