Honor Thy Carpenter and Thy Plumber

That your home may stand long...........

For me, there was something enthralling about wood. I wasn’t exposed to a lot of woodworking as a kid. Dad was from a rural area, and he was very handy. There wasn’t a lot of guys around with his high level of formal education who could fix the toilet, repair the basement steps, and tuck point the brick exterior of his home on the same Saturday. To the best of my knowledge, there are even fewer now. But he wasn’t a tradesman and had relatively few tools at his disposal. Home repair was neither career nor hobby for him; it was a necessity. Mom was also very capable and creative in her abilities to fix things or repurpose them. She had a way with early electronics and was a computer operator and repair person during WWII. Along with a love of wood, I learned a healthy respect for doing it yourself from both a pecuniary and a pride-in-workmanship point of view. But, somehow, there was enough wood being cut around the house to give me the fever. I slowly learned about woodworking over the years, as well as many other aspects of repair and maintenance. At a friend’s wedding when I was age 38, a buddy offered me a job that I was in no way qualified for as a restoration carpenter. By restoration I mean historical buildings. I like old stuff! So, I made the switch, being cautious not to burn any bridges back to social services where I’d been since age 21 and as a volunteer before that.

This article isn’t about my career as a carpenter/remodeler. It was a fine second career and I’m glad I did it, but it wouldn’t be very interesting reading. What I’m interested in is the change in perspective on working in the trades, and the resultant difficulty obtaining services. This has been an increasingly popular and bothersome subject of discussion for at least the last decade or so. It gets a lot of attention because buildings keep having maintenance needs at the same rate but it is increasingly hard to find folks that are conscientious and trained well to do work on your home or business. And, just as importantly, workers that will come back and fix any mistakes they made. It’s not as bad finding a licensed mechanical tradesman, at least not around my town. They have to be trained, apprenticed, and licensed to say they’re an HVAC technician, plumber, electrician or what have you and that is regulated. You can ask for credentials and insurance on that basis and be quickly reassured that you are getting somebody that knows their business. But frankly, you should be able to find a good handyman for smaller jobs in those arenas that would be much more affordable. You don’t need a master plumber at $100/hour to put a new flush valve in your toilet. Indeed, there are good handymen around, also. But not many. And the number of unqualified and seemingly uninterested folks going around taking money to do work they cannot or will not do correctly, is amazing and disheartening. I followed many of these individuals and crews on job sites and was amazed at some of the low quality and sometimes dangerous work they left behind. They often quit once they have the money whether the job is done or not, and then don’t return and refuse to answer calls from the customer. However, they somehow keep getting work because folks are, well, desperate. Homeowners don’t know how to do these various tasks themselves or don’t want to, which is very understandable. I’ve also had some exposure to this in new residential apartment or condominium buildings. Very poor workmanship and apparent design flaws, though it is possible design was abandoned in the name of cost savings or builder convenience. Ostensibly, these would be union built structures. Some of these problematic workers can be very convincing to the uninformed customer or the desperate contractor. They have equipment of some kind and a work type vehicle. They look and sound the part.

When I was a kid, anything dad or mom couldn’t do around the house, meant a visit from a tradesman that they had been doing business with for some time. By the time I arrived in the family, the folks had been homeowners for many years. They knew people. These workmen were received like family. The house was cleaned, especially in any corners the workers might have to crawl into, and they were welcomed not with trepidation, but with handshakes and smiles. Mom would feed them. Seriously, she’d snatch the screwdriver right out of their hand and replace it with a plate of homemade bread and butter. They’d find a bottle of honey and a cup of coffee on the table for them. If it was lunch time, well, you might as well wash up. You’re gonna eat and the conversation will not be lacking.

What with Dad being a highly educated fellow and mom an advocate of same (Mom was the recipient of a full ride scholarship to Penn State but her father deemed that unnecessary in that she happened to be female. Such was life in 1937, especially for some immigrants.), we kids were all raised to be academics. This really took well in offsprings 1 through 4, then there was me. I just wasn’t a school person and this was not a popular attitude in those days. Everybody was supposed to go to college. I began to notice that this was not particular to my family. It seemed to be just the way it was. We weren’t wealthy, dad was a public school teacher with five kids to feed. I don’t think it was a socioeconomic thing. Good tradesmen can make a very good living. It was just what they wanted for us and that was fair. The trend of pushing college above trades that I was identifying has not greatly changed as far as I can tell. Certainly, college is great for those that are inclined to formal education. But there are lots of us that are not. We’re not any less intelligent or clever or anything else. We just don’t like school. Gratefully, there was no familial ostracization over the point. But, on the grander scale, didn’t it occur to anyone that somebody had to build and maintain things? And wasn’t it a priority that we needed them to be good at their trade or trades as well as responsible businesspeople? I also have memories of folks being very proud to be in the same line of work as their parents. Family traditions that come with very good paychecks and direct line internship. Very efficient. Little or no student loans. That family tradition seems to have diminished. Perhaps generations of tradespeople aged out and eventually passed on having held fast to the notion that their children would not have to work as hard as they had for a living.

I do hear and read about an increase of promoting trades work for young people. In a quick search online, I found articles saying more young people are going that route but even more articles saying they are not. Perhaps it varies by geographical location. I don’t intend to get into a statistical study of this issue. I would submit that it is more constructive for us to consider what we can do day in and day out in our lives and communities to help the cause of more and better trades people while protecting ourselves from those that would cause us heartache and wasted money.

Here are some thoughts I have coming from an insider point of view. I have been a contractor as well as a homeowner needing to hire help:

It can only be helpful if we are careful of our attitude and rhetoric. I often hear disgruntled homeowners and other contractors that have been burned by a substandard contractor talking of their experience. They are angry and fearful of it happening again and often seem to think it will happen every time because it is “how it is these days”; they don’t seem to think it’s possible to get a good square deal on home repair and improvement. Spreading that caustic attitude is understandable, even somewhat well founded in that they have been through it. However, that is simply not true, and the negativity is not productive. It has gotten harder to find the right person, but steps can be taken. Let’s take heart in the knowledge that we can find a better way with some patience and thoughtful process. We can also help each other find good workers. They are out there. You may have to wait to get on their schedule, but it can be done.

A good first step is asking for a business license as well as a professional license if applicable. We should always require contractor insurance. Many folks operate without either and they may be just fine, but you are doing some weeding out of potential problem causers by asking for these basics. I was a very small time contractor that teamed up with other small contractors for larger projects. I always had insurance and a business license.

Let’s get at least three or four references. Make sure the references are specific. Just because a worker or group of workers can do well replacing your neighbor’s roof or putting up a new privacy fence, doesn’t mean they can frame or finish your basement remodel. This is a common misconception. People that can do one type of work are NOT necessarily able to do any other type of work correctly. Some can, more cannot. Any good workers I knew were proud to give you references and had plenty of them, too. Everyone makes mistakes but if you don’t resolve an issue and won’t even return calls, you are not an honest tradesman and you won’t get a good reference. There are many ways to screw up a job and you want to know that this person at least does well most of the time. When things go awry, they should have a record of following up to the customers’ satisfaction. They don’t have to be perfect, just reasonably dependable and proficient at their trade or trades. Make these folks earn your trust.

Ask questions about how your potential hire will resolve your needs. Even if you are not knowledgeable about the work needing to be done, you can still apply some common sense to their answers. If they get upset at your respectful inquiry, you probably don’t want them in your house or business. Ask your questions from a place of curiosity and desire to understand what is going to occur in your home, without any obvious suspicion. Let them know you are comparing their answers to others’ answers. That is just good business. I know it’s hard to even get people to come out and talk to you about a job. On the other hand, hiring someone out of desperation that will make an even bigger mess is obviously not a good solution. One last thought on this topic of asking questions. There are some unscrupulous home owners out there, also. They sometimes try to get tradesmen to tell them how to do a job then don’t hire them. They take the tradesman’s valuable information and either do it themselves or hire some unskilled person and supervise them doing what they learned. Please don’t be that homeowner.

I often see requests online for a tradesperson that “won’t cost an arm and a leg”. We all want a fair deal and if we can save some money and get a good product or service, that’s great. On the other hand, hiring someone because they are really cheap does not usually work out in your favor. Here’s another old adage: “you get what you pay for”. If you know how to do a type of work correctly, you also know how much it’s worth. You know how much is too high and what is just about right. You won’t take that valuable skill and charge half price for it. Even if you get a good sounding referral, ask for those specific references.

Don’t prepay for work to be done. I did work in all price ranges on houses worth tens of thousands and houses worth millions. I never asked anyone to prepay for my work. If it’s a large project, they would be well within their rights to ask you to pay as you go. Perhaps weekly or bi-weekly. If they ask for money for materials, that’s ok. Especially if it will be more than a hundred dollars or so. But make sure the materials are in your possession BEFORE you pay for them and get a receipt. If they plan to mark up materials, they should let you know that. Another alternative that many people choose is to go with the contractor to get the materials and pay yourself, later compensating them for their time. If you can’t be in attendance, this can often be done over the phone by credit card. Make sure the delivery address is your address.

Lastly, let’s generate positive energy about the excellent trades people out there. Make it a point to share information about the good experiences you have. Promote learning a trade to young people in your life. Really, you don’t have to be super young to go that direction. Maybe you know someone who got their degree but just isn’t doing that well or isn’t happy with the direction they’ve gone. It’s ok to change careers at any age.

Here’s to a better future in maintaining our homes and businesses with happier customers and proud working people.