Make Trades Great Again
Whether you're a seasoned professional, a newcomer, or simply interested in the trades, the "Make Trades Great Again" podcast offers something for everyone. Our goal is to promote the value of skilled trades, provide essential resources, and build a strong community of passionate individuals.
Industry Insights - Educational Content - Community Stories - Technology in Trades
Tune in now and be part of the movement to make trades great again!
Make Trades Great Again
Are we finally back to normal? Where are my materials?!
Picture this: you're running a small business and you just can't seem to get your hands on the materials you need, in the quantities you need, when you need them. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? We absolutely get it, and we're here to commiserate and share our experiences.
Join us for a fascinating conversation with John Mason Brink from the Appetite for Construction podcast, who's been embroiled in a master bathroom remodel for the last five months due to these exact challenges. We'll be sharing insights on the nuances of ordering materials, overcoming roadblocks, and the critical role of communication with suppliers.
In the plumbing world, supply and vent issues are abound. We talk about how supply and demand dictate material availability and share some of our own tricks of the trade like using polypropylene reducers for short vent issues. We also highlight our experiences with 636 pipe, CPVC adapters, and stainless steel as alternatives to PVC.
Don't miss our chat about the unexpected surprises and costs that come with boiler inspections and the importance of having access to emergency materials. And, as we look forward to the changing seasons, we discuss the impact of supply and demand shifts on material availability. This is a conversation that will provide you priceless insights into the world of small business challenges and how to navigate them. You wouldn't want to miss it!
Send us your feedback or topic ideas over on our social channels!
Eric Aune @mechanicalhub
Andy Mickelson @mick_plumb
Newsletter sign up: https://bit.ly/MH_email
Hey man, how you doing. Good, there you are, yeah.
Speaker 2:That was thanks.
Speaker 1:That's good. It's good. New month, new. You know, mow money, mow problems, that's right. That's right. That's what we're working on. Oh man, we're here for all your problems. What you got, hey, question for you. Oh well, I think we should say, because I always do everybody, welcome to the Make Trades Grading and podcast. If you're back, welcome back If you're new. Well, I'm Eric, he's Andy and we're going to talk about. What are we going to talk about today, andy? Well, we just said we were going to talk about your problems Mow money, mow problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if you're new to the podcast, we talk about our small businesses mostly. You know, andy and I are both plumbers, we do heating work and he's got employees, I don't, and we kind of do the same kinds of things. Really, think about it A lot of service, a lot of repair and a lot of just making our way through one month at a time. Yeah, running our small businesses. I love it, I love my job, I love it. I'm with a customer yesterday. We're lucky to have found something that we like, but so anyway, let's get to it.
Speaker 1:We were just talking off the air for a second about materials, getting the right stuff, getting it when you need it for jobs. It got brought up because I didn't sleep hardly at all and I think it's because I got these jobs happening right now and they're just, you know, boiler, change outs and create nothing that I haven't done hundreds of times, right, but I seem to kind of get that anxiety a little bit. Yep, it almost never manifests itself into keeping me up at night Like I don't know what it is, I don't even know if that's what it was, but you had brought up that, you. You tend to get a little anxiety about lately, about like having all the materials and he for the jobs and stuff, or getting it in on time for the start of a job.
Speaker 1:Or then I said well, you know, john, my partner, john Mason Brink from the Appatite for Construction podcast, by the way, check them out. He was just asking me because he's in the middle of trying to remodel his master bathroom. For the last five months that hasn't gone anywhere because it couldn't get the tile they wanted or something. I should call him, yeah, you should. I should call her, no, but they have a contractor working on it and it sounds like it's a mess, but I think they got it moving. But anyway, you were saying materials. You have in trouble getting stuff like regular stuff, like everyday stuff or what.
Speaker 2:You know, I think here's, here's my I don't know, I don't know what my impression of, of, of why it's that way. I'm finding that that will will end up having, you know, something stupid like venting that we can't get, yeah, or there's not enough of it. You know, and and that's the one that is that's really getting me these days is how do I get you know to the point, to the extent where I've got to order enough ahead of time so that I've got enough for the next two or three jobs? And so I guess I'd like to know in the last 12 months I've probably bought, I don't know, twenty, five thousand or fifty thousand dollars worth of centrotherm venting. I guess I got it it's got to be in that, in that realm, ok From from one supplier.
Speaker 1:And they're doing. They're just not bringing enough in at a time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'll call out there and, as far as I know, I'm the only one putting in a piece of equipment in Missoula that is using centrotherm. Well, polypropylene at the very least, yeah, but everybody else is using PVC. Still, every other manufacturer still got people improved and right, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, how many times over the years have you had the conversation with with your salespeople? You know, like, look, this is something I need you to stock. I'm going to be buying it. I'm not going to. You know, I've done it this way. You know, like, this is the the particular model boiler fill valve I like it. Doesn't matter what brand it is, I like the Kalefi one, but it's a backflow and a boiler fill it's. You know, yeah, it, it works for me. I like it. You know what I mean. How many times have you had that conversation where you call them up and be like I keep ordering this but you don't stock it. What's going on? Why don't you bring this in for me? And I mean you should be nicer than that. But I mean you know it works. It seems to have worked for me over the years.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you've done that and we have, and that's, and that's the thing is. So you know it'll be, it'll be good for a little while and then you'll call out and be like, hey, I got to, I got to go do this. You know we're doing this job next week or whatever. And we ordered the boiler and whatnot and I need you know six, six footers of vent pipe and I need you know three elbows and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you go, ok, well, we got four pieces of vent pipe, oh yeah, and we've got. You know, we've got the elbows and we got the rings, and you know, but we don't have these two pieces.
Speaker 1:It's funny. We talked about this the other day, I think you and I and I've resorted to box quantities on that. I mean, this isn't a centrotherm commercial, but I buy centrotherm too. We both buy the same boilers, so we have three polypropylene and apparently they're the only company in the game for venting. I don't kick anybody to stock anything else so right, right and and it's fine.
Speaker 1:The product's fine, I don't have a problem with it. Yeah, and so I've gone to the point where now I just box quantity Everything. I'm not buying one or two of something anymore, because either I make the mistake or I run into the situation you're in often enough to where I'm like well, what do you mean? You have four, I need six. I need six of those 10 footers, not four.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe I'm overordering by one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know. So like what is that? Like you know, 15 percent or what. You know what I mean. So like it shouldn't it shouldn't stop the job, though, and I shouldn't have a source for multiple, multiple warehouses either, like that that kind of stuff. To me, it sounds like you're in a situation where you have to convince them they need to up their quantities on hand or something, and that's what we talked about, you know.
Speaker 2:So the other day I was like all right, you know what I need? Two bucks or a box of 10s, a box of sixes, a box of four, threes, and you know. And then I talked to salesman and he's like, oh well, he must have a big job going on. I'm like no, I just I need this stuff and I'm tired of buying it, you know, tired of getting told that you don't have it. Oh well, you know we have it. And I was like where do you have it? Well, we have it, you know, in these other little other, in our other branches, and I'm like I can't, to me it doesn't. Yeah, I can't, you don't have it.
Speaker 2:You don't have it, then Right, you know, and if it's not in town, you don't have it. And you know, and I get it, that if I'm the only guy buying it, it's hard to have the vendor jump on board and be like, oh yeah, we're going to fill up the warehouse with it. You know, because as soon as I change, you know, if I change for something changes it's. I mean, I've still got a barrel of two inch Sit. I know I do too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, From when the manufacturer changed vent size, Well, I burn it up on the tank list then. That's what I've been doing. Yeah, because I can run two inch on that.
Speaker 2:Well, and the other thing I've been doing is we ended up buying like a half a dozen, three inch by two inch polypropylene reducers. Yeah, and you can do it.
Speaker 1:if yeah, you can use it if you're real short vent, Short vent.
Speaker 2:There's some short vent like, yeah, so I, we've done that a couple of times, you know, and I'm like, oh, hey, this is, this is an easy one, we got, you know, four feet and then we're out the sidewall or something like that. Yeah, Then we'll jump down and drop it into two inch and do it that way. But you know, so I get that there's. There's some supply demand issues there, you know, on their end as well you know, like I don't know that.
Speaker 1:I mean, is it on the manufacturing end? Because I got to imagine it's probably shelf space, like you're saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the fact of the matter is is maybe the volume isn't quite there for them, but the money still worth the same amount. So, like money in, money out, you know what I mean. If they're, if they're only bringing in a couple boxes of each size or something like that, I mean doubling it isn't going. I got to imagine you're just going to buy it. You know what I mean? Right? Maybe maybe you have to make a deal with them and say, look, this is what we're going to buy every quarter, or something like that, you know, and they just put in an extra order or something I don't know, Right, Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't, I don't know, I don't know what, I don't know what it does, what it is, um, I mean, it's gone to the extent where I was talking to a manufacturer's rep the other day that was in in one of the supply houses and when he was talking we were just and I've known the guy for a long time, 20 years, you know but we've both worked in the same space alongside of each other. I don't know him super well. My current Veeceman sales rep not the rep, um, my vendors sales manager, for that does deals with Veeceman um used to work for this guy as a sales rep and Dave and I were talking and he goes, hey, are you using, you know, any of the 636 pipe? And I'm like no, I didn't know anybody had it.
Speaker 2:You know who's got it. Well, you know, and I'm like, well, no, like seriously, like yeah, if, if nobody's got it, let's not talk about it, because I don't know what would be the point you got, well, I could use it. I could use it in red. I'd have to have the, the CPVC adapter, um, and then I could use the 636 system out of a Veeceman boiler. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1:It's not any faster, it's not but it's an alternative faster to use PVC or you know, in this case that's CPVC. It is absolutely not any faster than Yep Polypropylene. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it really, like I said, it had nothing to do with time. It's how fast can I get it?
Speaker 1:Oh well, you know the cost of that. I mean, I don't want to speak out of turn because I don't have an actual cost in front of me, but I've, I've been given price lists and it's not competitive, Right? No?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's like well, if that's my only option, I guess maybe I'll look at stainless Right Right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, I have not looked at it, but it was interesting to think about that and go. Well, you know, I guess I could use that.
Speaker 1:But. But it's a, it's a, it's a CPVC with a sticker on it, and I think that stickers what you know. That test costs a lot of money. You know what I mean, boy yep.
Speaker 2:They're going to overcoup it? Yeah, I don't know. I I still get frustrated because I look at it and go, well, you know what Every other piece of equipment that we install from any other manufacturer basically says I use whatever you want you want to use. Do you want to use your vacuum cleaner hose and I'll go ahead and use that. You know that'll be. I know you're not serious, but yeah, I know but, but you know it's, it's. You look at the, the vent specs on a Navian or on something on a and I'm not picking on Navian, I'm not saying that they're on a on a ream furnace on a ream furnace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all PVC and I and I know that, like you know, the Canadian have taken a big stance on it. You know, no more PVC they're. They're moving all the 636 and Centrotherm type stuff or approved vent materials. Basically, you know stuff that's purpose built and I I still look at you know we were doing something the other day. Oh, was that eight unit Navian rack system? You know, pipe this up PVC three dollar wise and so cheap, cheap fittings, and yeah it's, I mean it's oh, no, no, that's.
Speaker 1:You ain't got no three dollar. Wise, no, you're right.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I just it's. It's interesting to see that there's that, because of the manufacturer we're using, we're we're basically moving to a premium vent system to go with our premium boiler, if you will. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you brought it. I think you said the perfect description, purpose built.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's engineered specifically for venting gas appliances, which PVC is not. It doesn't matter if you think PVC is okay.
Speaker 2:The fact is it is not engineered for it, so there no, and and and everybody I mean I know I can I shouldn't say everybody. I know I can attest to how many jobs we've seen where we've pulled it out and it's messed up. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and then how many you have where it's not right. It's all kind of how the job ran. So, basically, my experience is this if it is a a high output tank, power vented water heater, yep, good chances it's browned and and messed up. If it's just a standard 30, you know 40,000 BTU, nothing fancy. Power vent. I bring a power vent because I've said it before and as you know from our conversations, it's like the number one water heater here in Minnesota from any house that's built, from like 98 on, and so we see power vents like you see fricking ducks on the pond, and so you know 40,000 BTU. Power vent, pvc vent it's probably fine as long as it wasn't sell core, which there's a lot of that out there.
Speaker 1:And then, and then if it's high output, like a 65,000 BTU, like those cast burners on the Bradford whites, you know, you know what I mean. Uh, it's not a Bradford white problem, it's a venting problem, and it's yellow or brown is like I, that that doesn't look safe to me, right? Yeah, uh, or we see, uh, my experience is this too, because I do tons and tons of service of crap that other people did poorly. And uh, if there's an indirect water heater hooked up to a high efficiency boiler I can almost and there's PVC venting, which there is always. Uh, I can almost guarantee you that venting is like. It should, in my opinion, be replaced. I don't have scientific evidence as to why it should be replaced, but I'm looking at it and that what was once a white pipe is absolutely not a white pipe anymore. Yeah, it's kind of on the outside yeah.
Speaker 1:It wasn't nobody painted it. It's not dusty. You know what I mean. It's like what? Like when the fittings and the pipe are two different colors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Cause the fittings don't seem to leach the color out or whatever it's happening. It's like a different material or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah and um the uh, I say the indirect because they're running out much higher 10 or almost always yeah.
Speaker 2:We've got a local athletic club here that's got um three Lock and bar night 500, uh XL's and they're vented in four inch PVC and four inch, only for 500.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, doesn't seem big enough.
Speaker 2:Doesn't it? Oh, it doesn't, but that's what they got him got got a four inch flu collar on it, so let's run a bunch of four inch on it, and that may be part of it. I mean, it may be that four inch was good for 30 feet and we're at 50. And you know, these boilers have never been serviced properly. I mean, in 18 years that they've been there, the test or something that they were a good boiler actually. Yeah, um, they're all three on their last leg and and we had gone out to do I had quit this customer years ago.
Speaker 1:Uh, this is the one I've seen, rob, practically. Yeah, these are those heat exchanger. They doubles or something like that. Yeah, they're so deep, they're so like, they're like two feet from back to back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your shoulder to fingertip to shoulder, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, but you've made the decision and they don't want to sell this or anything. We anyway the different long story. But we had I had quit with this customer, I fired this customer, I don't know, 10 years ago, yeah, so nope, we're done. And it was over a payment issue. You know they were really slow to pay and it just I was tired of it. You know every, every payment type thing. And so we get a call from them. Hey, you know we need you. Didn't know if you could help us with this. Our last, our last people aren't, you know, won't respond, we don't have any, whatever our heats not working.
Speaker 2:I was like, all right, here's the deal. You know it's payment at time of service. Take cash, cash card, check. Oh, you know we'll be out whatever will do this. And you know, kind of a one-time thing. And we, oh, it was there, their chiller was down then. So we went out to work on the chiller and and Looking at this chiller and it's just a train wreck, you know, it's just like, just, there's all kinds of stuff that's kind of jumpers and stuff. That's not not right. And I'm like, yeah, you know what I mean we're like and it's I said, sent miles out there and and miles calls me. He's like man, I don't know. There's like some. There's some stuff that's weird.
Speaker 2:About some stuff that's weird yeah and he's like venting, no, like with the, with the chiller, and and he's like, okay, I said, all right, well, take a look at. I mean, if there, obviously, if there's anything unsafe, I don't I mean just shut the thing off. You know, I mean whatever, I'm gonna ask you to do something unsafe. And so he found a couple of things and kind of figured a couple of things out and sounds like the maintenance guy had maybe been Helping out the situation, if you will. So we go up and I come, we come, get paid for that job, come back and they're like, oh well, we, you know, would you guys make do the maintenance on the boilers they're due to be doing? Have that done too? I'm like, okay, fine, I go up there. I'm expecting there to be new boilers there, right, because these things were hammered before.
Speaker 2:And the State boiler inspector 10 years ago Walked into the boiler room and these are three, five hundred thousand BTU boilers and they're I mean this place got a massive pool, all kinds of heat recovery equipment and these boilers are up and up running full fire. And he walks in and shuts the discharge valve off. Oh my god, on a half million BTU boilers stand the steel heat exchanger and the thing just goes bouncing and junk. I was I think I was in the room next door when he did it and I'm like what in the world is that noise? I walk in there and he's got this valve off and I'm like, what are you doing? He's like one test in the flow switch. I'm like you got to shut the fire rate off first. Like you can't. You can't take a half million BTU's, you know low-mass boiler and just valve the thing off. And you know he's like well, I got safety down.
Speaker 2:I'm like well, you're taking your life in your own hands there. Bud, you know I mean things only got like three gallons of water in it, yeah, and a lot of fire and a lot of fire and it's already 180 degrees, and so he does this on all three of these boilers.
Speaker 2:He's like, wow, you just keep on, move, keep moving, don't don't? You know you're impeding on my job and you know you kind of started getting all puffy chested and I was like, alright, whatever dude you're, it's your, you're out. I'm going out in the parking lot. You know we'll pick your pieces up when we come back and anyway. So we come back, I come back. I get a call from the, the Customer, later that day. They're like we don't have, well, there's something wrong with the heat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, yeah, I want your boiler inspector ruined your boilers.
Speaker 2:Well, and I don't know how, I don't know what happened. I don't know if it was the shock that what Henry Sutton, he somehow he managed to and I I can't. I got to blame it on him because he was the only one there and I don't know how he would have done it. You know, I don't know how he physically could have caused it to happen, but the, the cascade control on all three boilers is gone. They doesn't work. You cannot cascade these three boilers and the. I have no idea.
Speaker 2:And they were just all three boilers sitting there and two of them were locked out because they were lagbo. They're set up as a lag boiler and they're just sitting there idle, waiting for a command. And I'm like there's yeah, I don't have to say no, yeah, and it like say I don't. I don't know how you, he does that or how he could have done that, but nonetheless. So this is where we've got way off tangent. But I, I Get this. I'm sitting there scratching my head. So I'm like, well, I don't know, I mean we could put new control boards in them. I Like all three of them at the tune of 700 bucks a piece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, and they're like, oh no, we're not gonna do that, you know. I'm like, all right, well, I guess I mean we'll just set them all as a set point boiler, and I don't, I mean, I don't know, what else do you do? Yeah, you got one control signal that we can intercept, you know. And so they're like, oh no, yeah, just set point control. I'm like, all right, well, I mean, this isn't really the the best practice. You know, these are your efficiency. Well, it's, it'd be all right. So, ten years, and I go back, we walk back in there. They're just sitting there on them, the same as they were ten years ago. Set boiler, 180 degrees, 1.5 million BTU is just on year-round.
Speaker 1:Well, just like it's gonna be hard to replace those things. Yeah, back to the materials thing. So I just ordered Some last-minute stuff and I'd have a courier doubt, by good and, and they delivered and it was fine. But I was just. You ever heard the same. You know, once you, once you realize the cost of something Like that's the what it should cost. From that point on, right.
Speaker 1:Have you ever? Yeah, okay, so you like, you know, like, let's say you think a pair of shoes is X amount of dollars and from that point on that pair of shoes should only ever cost that amount of right. Yeah, now of course we know that's not true. But I man, I know we've talked about and we don't really get into like what we pay for stuff, but like we've talked about it in various forms in the past but Copper fittings, copper press fittings.
Speaker 1:I ordered a box that turns out to be this box. I ordered some one-inch fittings that I was I needed. I wasn't fully sure because I had stock in my shop but I was on the job. But I'm like you know what, I'm not gonna find out that I don't have them right, and if I'm gonna need them I'm gonna order them now. So just, you know I didn't order massive quantities, just a bag. So like, okay, I need a bag of one inch teas, because I know I need two teas but I don't have any in my box. That kind of well turns out, I have tons of teas in the shop.
Speaker 2:Anyway.
Speaker 1:I ordered this, this short list, I'm gonna say it's probably Six different types of fittings, 50 fittings, all one inch yeah, and I'm not kidding you along with a boiler fill valve and that might be it, to be honest with you, some copper fittings, a boiler fill valve, that invoice is like $100. I Just it wasn't any one fitting that. I was surprised at the cost. It was just like.
Speaker 1:It is a thing like you've decided what something should cost, and and that's what it's cost. From that point on, yeah, it was. It was so far beyond that what it should cost. You know what I mean? I was just like, oh my god, well, the other more yeah, we did that.
Speaker 2:I did so as it had a similar instance the other morning. So we'll go down, like on it, on a boiler install, right. So usually, like the ones we've been on here lately have been two or three day type projects, sure, a lot of piping, lots pumps, you know just just, and more involved, and We'll go down and you know, as soon as we get things going. We just share a, like an Apple note, if you will, and Rob's got a template, that's. You know, here's the things we need, here's the things we need to do, here's the questions that we have. You know, and it works out really well because he will share that with me, like first thing in the morning, like first day on the job, and I don't even have to be there, and so he'll start adding his material on it and start at putting questions on there, you know, and he may answer those questions himself, or he may ask the customer or he may, you know, figure stuff out or all. Look at it and go. You know, look at the note and go, oh yeah, no, this is what it is. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna put this on 8x8, 4x8 sheet of plywood, whatever the come, the question is, and so we had a lot of material on this order, a Bunch of little goofy stuff that we didn't have on the trailer, it kind of the same deal and I was like, okay, yeah, so he calls it.
Speaker 2:In the next morning I got up, left the house early and ran to the supply house, picked a couple things up and headed to the job and I don't know if I'm sitting in stoplight or something like that and the way our paperwork works. We always write the job name of what job it is, so that Cheryl knows who's it, who it's for, so it can get build out of correctly in the office. And I look at this invoice and I'm like flipping through, I'm like it's one page, you know it's a smallish box, and the same thing. I look and I'm like $1,100. Yeah, like, yeah.
Speaker 1:What is in this box? What is in this? Like 12 by 12 by 12? That's 1100 bucks. That's what I was at 700 something. Buckler, some copper fittings, yeah yeah at least when I picked it up. It was kind of heavy.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? That's damn. They're like holy crap. Well, I mean, you know whatever? I mean there's, there's this same kind of thing though, hey, but you just kind of go, wow, huh, I guess I need to. I probably need to run back through a job costing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I know Well, I've ran into it a few times this summer, just pricing out simple things. I threw out a price quick for a friend it was a friend of mine whose son and daughter-in-law bought a house, needed a softener, the laundry slash, kitchen line. They needed that snaked out, right, you know, 35 year old house, nothing crazy, just and they wanted to estimate on a basement bathroom. So I knew the basement bathroom stuff. I was prepared for that to be way higher than I ever think it should be. Like I'm just amazed at what that costs us now in 2023 versus what it cost us five years ago. It's just insane, yeah, how little we used to do it for. Yeah, and I warned my customers. Now I'm like, look, this is going to be more, this is likely to be more expensive than you think it should be. It's just the way things are now. We're paying way more for materials and things like that and my cost hasn't really changed, right, not that much, not like the material costs have. But you know, the softener I threw, I just quickly. I'm like, oh, it's just a cabinet softener, let's put. I put this number on it and then I got everything. But they couldn't do the basement bathroom because of cost, by the way, right. And they said, well, they're going to save on that, and so they will. They'll come back around probably. And but we want to do the softener and have you clean that drain and then replace that silcock.
Speaker 1:And I look at my S-man like why did I price that softener at that much? Like that's like $200 more, and I pay for it, that's it. Now I'm like, oh, I guess I'm not making any money on this softener. Oh, my God, I didn't. It's cause I just I don't know what I did. I line item like I flat rate, that's like I must not have had that entered, that particular kind of softener entered into house call, and I'm just like I just threw a number on it or something, or maybe I just mistyped, I don't know how it happened, I don't. And then I'm just like, well, I'll fix this in the software, but I'm not going to make any money on this one. Whatever, it's fine, it was a quickie and it, you know, we got to take care of.
Speaker 2:I transposed a number on my markup here on a pretty big job recently and we went from, you know, having our standard normal markup to like 2%. Oh boy, and I'm like wait, what? What's this number going here? Why is that so small? And I didn't catch it till after, you know well after and I'm like hey.
Speaker 1:I hope we made money on that one.
Speaker 2:I hope we got. I hope we come in under unlabored.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, cause we ain't making any money up for, you know, long term. Yeah yeah. No, that's interesting, it happens. I have to go through, I'm in that transition. This is a whole other topic and I don't. I'm not going to get into it, but just to end things here, cause we're at 30 minutes. I'm, I am officially in the mode of. I have started the the heating calls.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not because it's cold, but because people are. Are, I think they're? I think some people took a few notes to heart from COVID, you know, like a better get on this kind of thing, get on this early. Yeah, yeah, and I'm hoping that's the case. Okay, you know. Anyway, quick change out the other day. One day change out would have normally been two, but I kind of had some prep and that, when everything went well, kept it simple. That's another thing. That kind of made it go fast. Yeah, the truck stock, you know. And then my point of this the truck stock, everything's changing. Now, all of a sudden, we're out of summer mode and officially, in my opinion, I even just this week I changed out a couple of silcox that had broken. You know it. Just, whatever I get it, it's going to trickle in, but it's not like it has been, yeah, typically through the summer, and now we're looking at change in season.
Speaker 1:So yeah it's stock's going to change a little bit. Stocking up, I got to put some orders in, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I noticed the other day pumps, that's my thing. I'm like, oh, we've been, we've been through these boiler installs and all of a sudden I'm like, sitting on, I got like a I was taking through my van and I'm like, yeah, I am at this customer's house and you know, it was late in the day, late, late, late at night, no hot water. And I'm like, oh, okay, I'll go, I'll go take care of this. You know, cheryl says, hey, can somebody peel off that install? You know, maybe a little bit early and maybe work a little late and go do this. No hot water for these people.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, I know, I think I can handle that. You know, it's kind of, kind of on the way home and, and I'm like I should have all that stuff on the truck anyway, I roll up this guy's house and I walk in and I'm like, oh, yeah, sweet, okay, you know, checking things out and yeah, you got it seized up, 007, you know, all right, I got one in the van. I run out there, I'm ruff, ruff, ruff, rifling around the van.
Speaker 1:I'm like, you should not have the rifle for a pump. It's not small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and I'm like I got to have one here somewhere and I don't have one.
Speaker 1:it's it's like yeah, it's not somewhere, it's a spot.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and but that's just it.
Speaker 2:I'm like I must have put it somewhere, I must have taken it out of where it was supposed to be and set it on the shelf, and then it kind of just found a new home or something like that. I know I've saw it here somewhere, while I ended up finding the box that I'm thinking about and it's like a 006 box, oh and I'm like why do I even have a 006? Like what is that even for, right? And I'm like you got to be kidding me. So here it is, you know like 440 in the afternoon, and I'm, you know, 20 minutes from the supply house. I'm like, all right, call the supply house. Hey, can you set it outside? We set it outside because I'm gonna make it there by the time.
Speaker 1:you guys are closed and, yeah, you're gonna be eating dinner when I get yeah, yeah, yeah, so my suppliers won't do the set it outside anymore. Yeah, too much stuff. Yeah, I guess I don't know they're just like, no, we don't do that, we can't do it. I'm like you can't do it and like we can't. We want to. We just we have to. We had to draw the line in the sand and that is the sand line.
Speaker 2:I was. I was talking to one of our Branch manager at one of the local local branches here recently and they were talking I don't think they haven't come through with it yet, but he was talking about getting one of those like Amazon box kind of thing. Yeah, like a big Amazon box or UP or like a male Side of the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can give you a gang box like a temporary code. Yeah, yeah, that would be useful. I had to. I had to, you know, swallow it and be like, can you get it on a one-hour career? Then Like, can you get because they'll show up one hours, will show up like within 15 minutes of their call, right, and they're like, yeah, we can do that. I'm like, oh great, well, I mean, at least I don't have to come and get it myself. All right, dude, let's wrap it, that's it sounds good, gotta go buy it.
Speaker 1:Some venting and I got a restock for fall.
Speaker 2:There you go, it's here. I love the fall, though. 49 degrees here this morning, oh, 49, 49. We haven't talked weather in a while, man, that's right, get me started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm looking forward to the fall, though I really am.
Speaker 2:Yep, I do. It's my absolute favorite season Sprout, like you know, I got to tell you that early spring or not early spring, early summer is also, you know you come out of the long winter right up yeah that long winter and you get to the get a little sunshine coming and a couple of 73 degree days and you're like, oh, we're living the life you know humidity and then it's a hundred, and then it's like that.
Speaker 1:All right, dude, see you later.
