Plumbing. Every homeowner thinks swapping a simple valve is a 15 minute job until they are on their fourth trip to Home Depot at 8:45 PM on a Sunday with the water shut off to the entire house.
Machinist here. I kind of just fell into the trade by taking literally any offer trying to get out of my nightmare landscaping gig. It's right up my alley and holy fucking shit the amount of stuff there is to learn is insane... Somehow I convinced someone at the best shop in town to hire me to make aerospace parts... I'm starting to get the hang of it now but I've never felt more like a fraud in my whole life.
Faucets and even toilets are pretty easy. I would be really wary of any plumber who tries to manipulate someone into thinking they aren't capable of replacing a basic fixture.
Nah, it's quite simple. These would fall into homeowner diy or handyman territory. You want a plumber when it comes to major leaks or clogs, but for the simple stuff, keep your money.
There's tons of plumbing companies out there that charge stupid amounts of money for what amounts to basic work. They send out a technician (not a licensed plumber) who makes $30/hr to do a basic job, then give you a bill that amounts to $500-1000/hr. Stuff like replacing a sump pump, using a manual drain auger to clear a clog, replacing the wax ring on a toilet.
They make bank on uninformed homeowners because there are always enough people who will be like that. Avoid those companies because plumbing, or any trade for that matter, is not wizardry.
It’s a major red flag when a plumber (if he even is one) tries to guilt/scare people into thinking they aren’t capable of replacing a basic faucet without putting their home at risk. The best pros I’ve hired are honest about what they should do vs me so myself. Same goes with electricians. The idea that only a licensed pro is capable of replacing a damn outlet without burning down the house is absurd.
I don't own a home, but if/when I do, I will never try to DIY either plumbing or the electricity. Last thing I need is to electrocute myself in poopy water.
Best thing ever when I was much younger learning about home ownership.
We had a plumbing supply store 1 block over and three blocks up.
Not a big box, not hardware, plumbing supply.
Plumbing supply stores are where you can sometimes learn the mysteries of how water comes out of faucets, and if you are lucky, how to make it happen again.
Not a plumber but swapping a simple valve is not that hard. Done it multiple times, takes me 15-30 mins Max. That being said, I used to work on ultra high vacuum setups, so there is a lot of technical understanding of pipes etc involved there. I however know my limits and will call a plumber if I think I'm using a shortcut or if something is outside the time I'm willing to invest in it.
That being said a good plumber will take 5 mins, as they do it multiple times a day.
Tbf it would've gone better if the pipe was 1/2" longer before the elbow, then I wouldn't have had to replace the elbow, too. But I learned to just use PEX, I'm not fucking with soldering when we're selling the house in 6 months. Then it'll be someone else's problem
On my fifth trip to Home Depot that night, right before they closed.... I had a $2 part and there was only one register opened. Yep, 6 people, each with the equivalent of a small house, in line. The manager saw me basically covered in mud, and when I offered to pay him cash, he said, nah, just take it and go. They were a new store in our town then and opened till 10:30. It worked though, and I happily got up at 5:30 am for a hot shower before work the next morning. I was in my 30s then, given enough time, I could fix anything, now, I spend the day looking for tools and napping.
My partner and I work for the same couple, small town business owners with several operations. He does maintenance for all of them and gets spread so thin because of this mentality. I watched this man take a sawzall to a pipe in the ceiling and unknowingly cut through a water pipe instead of the intended one. Thankfully for us it was an easy cleanup of fresh water after hours but, you get the moral of this story. It’s a constant struggle of expectations vs reality.
When I first bought my old house about 20 years ago, I had a slow drain, and drain cleaners weren't fixing it. So I decided to buy a drain snake.
The snake got caught on something, and I just couldn't get it out. Cue the call to the plumber. Get the drain snake out, and then fix the actual problem I was trying to fix....
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u/kenzijacobspg 1d ago
Plumbing. Every homeowner thinks swapping a simple valve is a 15 minute job until they are on their fourth trip to Home Depot at 8:45 PM on a Sunday with the water shut off to the entire house.