Posted on 12/01/2014 7:07:43 PM PST by newb2012
They drove everything down, not just $10.00 faucets but everything.
It used to be that almost everything that you had in your home that was plumbing, from water heaters to faucets, to toilets and bathtubs, to P-traps and angle stops, came from your plumber, and the industry would turn on a dime to stop buying from a maker if a fixture was not high quality.
Plumbers in Dallas, in San Francisco, in Maine, all finding a brand that wasn’t holding up or was causing callbacks would all quit buying it within weeks or months of each other, but today, there is an endless supply of new buyers with no idea of quality or longevity.
Even the old names had to start making junk to sell to Home Depot and introduced cheaper lines of their products.
One beloved plumber’s faucet maker apologized in the 1990s to us in full page ads, saying that they had to meet Home Depots demand, because they couldn’t afford to not sell faucets there.
The lack of quality has not gone unnoticed. The fixtures in my parents house were original from when they bought it 40 years ago. They kept them polished and look as new as the day installed.
I have no illusion the faucets installed in my new house will hold up. The problem it I will need a plumber to get the shower control replaced. That’s not one I will do myself.
Question for you. Does that involve dismantling the fiberglass shower enclosure to get at it?
Great example, that used to be the normal situation for plumbing, it was practically permanent.
On your shower, the plumber will repair the valve, or work through the existing hole if it is a single handle to replace it, or go through the back wall if practical, or worse case, cut out some of the fiberglass and use a cover plate to conceal his hole, it all depends.
Ahh, go through the drywall on the back side of the wall. Now drywall I can patch. Plumbers obviously have to be very smart to get at this stuff. Which is why I generally hire them...just not to install a dishwasher.
For people with the money, hiring a thinking journeymen is the way to go, when I go into a home to do a job like a dishwasher, I of course do the switch out that you can do, but I also look to see if there are any improvements, repairs, corrections, adjustments, or upgrades that I can do with everything that is in that area.
Many times I might do a number of great things to assure that the customer will not need any repairs under the kitchen sink for the next 25 years , like getting rid of cheap line taps for the refrigerator ice maker and often redoing tacky work from other plumbers, or water filter guys, or handyman, or from someone doing semiskilled work to turnover the house, along with extensive leak testing not only of my work but of everything, including filling the sinks, turning on the disposal and dumping the water, and repeating several times, while not all of us can afford that kind of attention, if one can, then it is the only way to go.
When finished, I always ask if there is anything else that they want me to look at, or something somewhere in the house or garage or yard (hose bibbs)that they had a question about, or would like a price on, I also do as much visual inspection as I can and check their water pressure and main shut off (I want every customer to have a high quality, main water shut off, that is easy to reach at 2:00AM by the babysitter, or grandma, or mom, or anyone.
I don’t see any reason for a customer to spend all the money to have me come out to do a specific repair or replacement, and then me seeing repairs that will need to be done in the next year or two, and me not telling them that we should do that today.
I think they are hiring me for my experience and that they want that experience to play a role in the mechanics that I do, and I try to let them know that they can access my experience, and after turning my wrenches, I try to add more value for their dollar, by talking to them and letting them know that they can open up to me with any questions or call me in the future with any questions or inquiries about plumbing.
The first time one meets a customer they may have been putting off calling a plumber for 10 or 20 years, it is great to see them relax after you do your first little job for them, and then they start calling you for all the delayed jobs that they dreaded having to hire a rough, grubby, pipe wrench carrying oaf of a stranger to come into their home to do, once they trust you, they love seeing you and come to see you as their personal wizard man that takes care of their home and does it cleanly and with their comfort and interests in mind.
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