DIY Section

Many DIY'ers have been using this site to gain more information about plumbers as well as about tankless water heaters. This page is dedicated to you DIY'ers out there (Like me) who are trying to learn more and save money on the things you want to do around your home. Don't let the title of my book fool you. It is all about helping plumbers serve you beter to earn the money they deserve. There is not a lot of that going around these days and I hope my book will help everyone. But now I want to offer more information on things you want to know about at your home.

Are you saving Money when you do a job yourself?

Many times the answer to this question is YES! If there is a repair that you can do and not hire a contractor then you will have not only saved time and money but built pride in your home and yourself. These are all great things for everyone. The warnings I have for you are these:

Know your Limitations! If you don’t know how to do something that requires a professionally trained person, learn to recognize that and hire someone. You save money in the long run, get a much better quality project and much better warranty support. I wish you could know how many times, I have been the one to have to fix a homeowners well meaning but poor quality workmanship. Not only did they pay for the wrong stuff in many cases, but they wasted their time botching the job and by the time it was over I had to remove EVERYTHING they had done and start over! They ended up spending much more in the long run. I don’t care if its fixing your car, your water heater or your TV set, you can’t beat a man at his trade.

Second, think twice about buying certain items over the internet that you know require professional installation! Many times a person thinks they are getting a good deal on an item for their home and they purchase it over the web to save money. Great, now who is going to install it? Who will service it? Did you get the correct size or capacity for your needs? Did you get all the parts needed for the installation? If not, where will your installer be able to get the parts? Is it going to be too big or too small? Did you buy a model that is outdated? Will it even fit your application? Where do you turn if you need warranty support? You see many times product are purchased by well meaning homeowners who buy the wrong thing for their needs only to find out later. Or worse, they buy a thing that nobody wants to install for whatever reason, and then the HO decides they can do it themselves, installs it wrong and then can’t get a refund. If they do find a person to install it and they have a problem, the installer will be quick to point out “You bought it, I just put it in”. The HO is left to deal with it themselves. When professional products are purchased through professionals, everything is covered and assuming the HO chose a good company, the job goes smoothly. If something happens to the equipment the installer has complete responsibility to remedy the situation. If you think you are going to save a few bucks at the expense of someone else profits…you are RIGHT! Guess what? Here’s a news flash for you. Profits are what makes things happen. Without being able to make a profit, a provider of equipment or service would care very little about you or your problem and if you expect to get good service after having done everything you can to keep them from making money, well…good luck with that. Save money where you can. Fix what you can fix, hire people for the things you can’t do and recognize the difference before it cost you time, money and agrivation.

“Flat Rate” v/s Hourly Contractors – Is flat rate a good value for the Homeowner?

There are many contractors who have gone to a so called “Flat Rate” pricing system for service calls and installations. Many have done it due to pressure by homeowners who do not trust hourly rates and believe that a contractor might take longer to do a job to get more money out if it. Some have done it because of their competition, or because their business is so large that pricing had to be structurered to avoid confusion and mistakes and others simply to make more money.

Here is the dirty little secret. Contractors usually purchase a Flat Rate price structure from a company that sets up the rate system. These systems are actually designed to protect the profitability of the contractor…not you! Most of the time a good hourly company is going to bill you a lot less for the same job than a Flat Rate contractor, period. Sure there may be a rare time when a job takes longer for whatever reason than it should and you would think that the flat rate would protect you the consumer. Truth is the extra time is built into the normal flat rate price anyway.

For the record, I am not against the flat rate pricing! I happen to believe in contractors making a profit because without it, good contractors won’t be able to stay in business and flat rates help them do just that.

But doesn’t this protect a homeowner from unscrupulous contractors? I don’t really think so. Read the article below on hiring a contractor and you will see that it is very hard to spot bad ones without doing your homework. Here’s the real truth of it. Contractors are BUSY! They don’t have time to make jobs last longer to try to milk a few more bucks out of you. They can make more by running off to the next job and billing them. The more jobs they bill in a day the better. Even the bad contractors are busy!

The important thing is to hire a good contractor you can trust to do a great job at a fair price whether it is a flat rate price or hourly charge.

Hiring a Plumber

The best advice I could ever give to you the homeowner and DIY’er is this: Know your limitations! There are hundreds of things around the house that most people can fix or change themselves with very little knowledge or expertise, however when you overestimate what you are capable of and botch a job, it will cost you much more to have a professional fix it right that it would have if you would have just hired them to do it right the first time. (Not to mention fix anything you might have broken while trying!) Some of you reading this are highly skilled people who could practically build the whole house yourself. If this is you then you are certainly the exception and not the rule for most DIY’ers.

So how do you go about finding a good plumber? It is a tough thing to do in some areas. There are many fine companies out there ranging from one truck, one plumber outfits to big companies with dozens of trucks. There are really good (and unfortunately really bad) contractors that fit any and all descriptions regardless of their size. I happen to know some large outfits that are top notch and also some that I would not let anywhere near my home! Same with small outfits. Some are great, and do the best work and really give personal service, others are not much better than jacklegs, out to make a quick buck at your expense. All this means it is up to YOU to figure out the difference before you have a bad and expensive experience.

This first thing to do is talk to your friends and family members to see who they have dealt with and how happy they are with the company. When you are talking to a company don’t be afraid to ask for references and check them out! ALWAYS make sure that you know they are fully licensed and insured! Hiring an uninsured contractor because they are cheap is a sure way to have big problems!

There are a lot of small one truck guys out there that are cheap or low priced and that is what they base their business on. This is a sign of someone who you probably don’t want in your house. Many of these guys find out too late what it cost to run a plumbing service business and are long gone if you have a problem with their work or need them again.

By that same token, if you are a homeowner that calls 10 contractors asking what their rates are, you are probably NOT a customer that good contractor wants to work for! Most of these customers only care about the price today and have no interest in the quality of the work or the parts used and give no thought to how long the repair or fixture will last as long as they can get it cheap. A good contractor will be quick to spot you and get rid of you leaving you to the wolves out there who will get your cheap job and run with your money. You get what you pay for…normally.

But what about the big companies that hire underskilled technicians and call them “plumbers” and charge big bucks? You have to ask if the technician sent to your home is a licensed plumber in your state or if they are just a “Technician”. If you are going to pay for a “Plumber” to come to your home to do something you can’t do, you need to ensure that the person that comes out has the skills you are paying for. A “journeyman” or a “Master” plumber is what you really want working on your house. At the very least, a plumbers Apprentice (registered in an apprenticeship program) and directly supervised by a licensed plumber should be doing your work.

Why do you need to bother with all this? Simple. Plumbers deal with the water your drink and bathe with as well as the disposal of waste in a sanitary and safe manor. Why would you want someone who is not properly trained to work on these important systems?

Even doing your homework you might have to try a couple to find one you really like and trust. Once you do, keep their number handy and share it with your friends and family. This will help ensure that that company is still around the next time you need them. There really are some fine companies and contractors out there. You need to find them and know who they are when you need them. There are folks out there in older homes who have great relationships with their plumbers and electricians. These people are usually very well taken care of by their contractors and even protected by them because they have become trusted customers and sometimes even friends. Repeat or regular customers are highly prized by good contractors! If you don’t have a decent relationship with your plumber, it might be time to look for another one more worthy of your business.

So now get those things done you can do yourself! Do a good job, take your time and be safe about it. Just remember that as soon as you are not certain how to get a project done, you have plenty of great people out there who want to work for you.