Are we finally back to normal? Where are my materials?!

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 . 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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

I don't kick anybody to stock anything else so right , right and and it's fine . 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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

There's some supply demand issues there , you know , on their end as well you know , like I don't know that .

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 ?

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . 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 .

From that point on , right . 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 . 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 .

I was surprised at the cost . It was just like . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . 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 .

I have started the the heating calls .

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 .

So yeah it's stock's going to change a little bit . Stocking up , I got to put some orders in , you know .

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 . 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 .

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 .

We had to draw the line in the sand and that is the sand line .

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 .

Some venting and I got a restock for fall .

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 .