Plumbing Challenges: Insights, Experiences, and the Future of the Trade

In this episode of the Plum Delusional Podcast, hosted by Daniel Mitchell from Mitchell Plumbing, listeners are introduced to septic tank and excavation specialists Paul Marsh and James Titsworth. They discuss the challenges of working in plumbing and excavation, particularly how weather impacts their work and the unique issues they face. Paul, an Army veteran with a decade of experience, and James, who has been in the field for five and a half years, share personal anecdotes, leaning into themes of work ethic, customer relations, and the nuances of contracting.

The conversation recognizes the stress of customer interactions and the importance of proper communication among tradespeople to maintain quality service. They also explore the evolving nature of the plumbing industry, including the integration of smart technology in plumbing systems and the generational challenges in attracting new talent to the trades. Amidst humorous stories and camaraderie, the episode reinforces the value of teamwork, dedication, and delivering quality service as they navigate the unpredictable nature of their profession.

The trio wraps up by inviting listeners to connect with Mitchell Plumbing through their website and social media, underscoring their commitment to quality and community.

Welcome to Plumb Delusional, the podcast where Daniel Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Plumbing in Lafayette, Georgia, takes you on a journey through the pipes and problems of modern plumbing.

Each episode dives into the nitty-gritty of the plumbing world—addressing common issues, uncovering surprising myths, and sharing memorable stories from decades of experience in the trade.

https://www.mitchellsplumbingga.com/
Phone: (706) 523-3201
Address: 206 N Duke St, LaFayette, GA 30728

Transcript

(Upbeat Music) Hey guys, what's up this week? This is Daniel Mitchell, Mitchell Plumbing. This is Plum Delusional Podcast coming at you this week from Build Something Media. We are here with Paul Marsh. He's one of my septic tank and excavation specialist. This is James Titsworth. He's a septic tank and one of my excavation specialist. Also, I thought I'd get them on here and get y'all acquainted with them, which is raining today, so they ain't really got a whole lot to do. They had a big waterline job going on and a little muddy. Unfortunately, we can't always control the weather. Paul, you wanna introduce yourself? Let everybody know a little bit about you. I'm Paul Marsh, Army vet. I've been in the industry now for about a decade. So I got a little bit of experience in what we do. All right, James, you wanna introduce yourself? I'm James. I've been doing this for about five and a half years now. I catch a lot that a lot of kids my age don't work the ethic that I do. That new baby of stuff has probably got your ass out. Yeah, she's a handful, but she's the greatest thing ever I swear. How old is she now? She is seven months, what's today, the 31st? So four days ago. Four days ago? Four days ago, so one of them babies laying in a cradle beside you bed will make you get up and go to work and come home and then get up and go back. It's funny when you get children, it's a lot different than it was when it just... Yeah, but even then, people have told me that for years. Well, I've always said to those people, you can teach plumbing or you can teach excavation or you can teach septic, but you can't teach work ethic. I mean, that's one of the things about it now. We might can teach you how to read on arm clock. Maybe, maybe. No. No, no, no. 10 minutes calls, 10 minutes or yes, long clock, no serve. That's why I tell him seven o'clock, rest of the day, 7.30. Actually, you've been on a roll lately. You've been doing good. And Paul, he might... It gets a little far for him to get there too, on time. Got to shuffle the kids around at school. Right, right, right, right. And you play delivery service too. Right, yeah. Right, we was coming in and we learned something new today. Yeah. You cannot stop a pep tank install after you pull the permit because of non-payment. Yep. You got to finish her up. So that's a new one on us. We didn't know you had to... Once you commit, you're committed on a septic tank field line. I guess it's... I understand it to a point. But it doesn't make sense. We call the permit so it's on us to make sure it's correct. Right, because we know everything. And if somebody else would be relying on our work and they can't guarantee it. Right, that's true. And then... But that's part of contracting and working out here. There's always gonna be that fine line between doing a job and doing it correct and doing it how everybody wants it. But we're always talking about vetting our contractors or vetting our people in the workforce. We ought to be able to vet our customers. (Laughing) I don't think that's worked that way. There ought to be a database that you can put customers in that way you can look them up and be like, do not work for them. Do not work for them. Proceed with caution. Yeah. Green light. Have a Google review for the customer. Right, right. Well that would help. That would definitely turn down Google reviews or control Google reviews better. We've got good Google reviews. You go to our website, you go to our Google, we've got a 4.8. We've got one or two bad reviews. But if you read the one or two bad reviews, one of them is because we couldn't get a guy financed. Like I had control over his FICO score. And then one was because the lady said we didn't show up. And I believe she wasn't even talking about the right Mitchell's Plumbing. There's one in down South Georgia or up in Tennessee somewhere. And it's Mitchell's Plumbing. That's why I changed my name to Mitchell's Plumbing in pots. Gotcha. But they get on there and they hit you with the review before they know it. Before they verify their-- Nobody ever goes back and takes it off, right? They just go to the next one and give them one too. People love to do reviews. That's what we need to start doing is just doing reviews on people on the podcast. Just call them out by name and review them. But then you know every now and then you do get the customer, regardless of quality of product, you give them, you can give them the best product in the world and they're still not gonna be happy with it. No, no. And then on top of that, that's what Lynn Channing was talking about this week. On top of that, it's a high stress game anyway. And then you bring something into it like, you know, a disgruntled customer. And then you add another project manager or if we're working on a house that takes what the customer said to the project manager. A tiny issue seems to snowball into a great big issue. Yeah, nine times out of 10, that's my out work. I mean, I've done it to y'all. I mean, y'all come in and I'll take it. By the time the issue gets to me, it's went from this little tiny issue to when it gets to me, it's your guys are terrible and they don't know what they're doing and they've done this and this and this and y'all come in and all we've done was put on a stop and the stop, what, a quarter turn? Or, you know, we put a valve in and then the handle was still from the factory. I mean, I'm dealing with that right now. He called me yesterday. And I understand it. I mean, he can't turn it on and off, but the valve is, that's the valve from the factory and then if he wants it any more convenient, we're gonna have to pull it out on the wall and put it up above the toilet. Or go to that, you and I discussed that Moen flow. Moen flow, right. Turn it off on with her phone and it won't be on. And that might be what I need to talk to him about. He might not want to spend another $800 on the Moen flow. I mean, that's the thing about it. But by the time you cut the wall out, do all the work, wouldn't you be about that in any ways? But at the time, we wasn't putting the valve in to be used, we were putting the valve in. We were doing it for isolation valve, yeah. Leak detection. Well, now that the valve's in, he won't use it. And then now it's our baby. It becomes your baby before, you know, we get a lot of babies. It does end up like that. I've always said that it seems like a plumber gets it. You know, poop rolls downhill and plumbers at the bottom. It feels like it. It feels like it. If anybody's got, that's like the other day, you know, Ching and them, they called me about the scuff on the floor. Four or five other trades was in there, but plumbers did it. That's why we stress whenever we go, even when the customer's like, "Oh, you don't need the booties." It's like, no, we're gonna do it every time. But therefore it's a habit and you don't even think about putting them on. All right, that's another thing. Anybody listening to this podcast, if my guys come to your house and they ain't got on them orange booties, you call me because that's the big deal I want to make. I mean, I know I preach booties all night. I take my boots off. I mean, if they take their shoes off, that's one thing. But if they come to your house without booties and you tell them not to put the booties on, they're probably gonna put them on. I mean, I put them on. Or I wear, most of the time I wear two-part shoes. I got boots and then I've got shoes. But I still put the booties on just, a lot of times just to show people the cure. We respect their properties. And that's one thing that I, on the scuff on the floor, I was like, did my guys have their booties on? Well, then why would you have thought they scuffed the floor? I mean, did they have their tarts with them? Yeah, they had their tarts down there, but they was the only ones in the house. Okay. And then I thought, my guys, and there was three other trades in there. They came and went quick. Nobody else saw them, but they was in there too. Yeah. And I don't know, will you? I guess I'm in a bad head space with everything that's going on right now. We've had quite a few bumps and rubs. Quite a few bumps and rubs. Well, we've just dealt with a bunch of nonsense lately. Yeah. The nonsense gets into making the fun stuff, not fun sometimes. Yeah. Yep. But we don't want to get stuck there. We'll be out of here shortly. Yeah. We'll be in the, y'all be in Winder, Georgia next week. Yes, sir. That's going to be a new adventure. I'm not about that. We'll be remodeling some circle carols on Winder, Georgia. Then we're supposed to do a couple of Taco Bells. That's going to be something. And U-Haul called me last night. About done looking at a facility. So I'm going to look at it. And I think sometimes we get a little, I think sometimes I get a little too zealous and start taking too much work sometimes. But then you turn around and you're like, None of us like sitting still. No, no. I've told people that all the time. My guys love overtime. I don't know what it is. I mean, sometimes I can't run y'all's home. Now I'd say by the end of the day today, y'all be ready to run home. Cause y'all got plenty of overtime. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're good this week. Yeah. Me and Killa was talking about that one was getting ready. We was getting paydays ready and everything. Is y'all probably got about as much overtime as y'all want this week. Yeah. Well that South Pittsburgh job, but I'll kind of put it to bed yesterday. So that's good. Yep. That's good. We'll be waiting on. And that's another thing is you, we have to wait on other trades to finish. You know, it's like ours comes in parts, you know. Yeah. We're different stages where we can get to a certain point and then we got to wait. Right. And then get a little bit further. Yeah, we're at ground. We have to wait. We started groundwork and then we got away. And then we get, We get rushed to started. Yeah. Everybody else comes in, does their stuff. Then we get rushed again. And then we get rushed to get out because usually we're the last. We're on the last track. We're on the last track they need for the CO. So they're like, get it out and get out. Get out of here. Get out of here. So we're always running. We're always running. But I also would rather be in that, have that bad problem. Rather than have the problem of hunting work. I mean, I hate hunting work. I really do. I mean, we've got too many, we've got too many families that depend on us to make sure that we're making everybody enough hours. I'm glad y'all get the overtime because that's extra money y'all can take and use for your families. Now you'll have plenty of it because you ain't got time to family your families right now. Yeah. But speaking of families and everything, you did mention it a while ago. You are our veteran of the, you served over in Afghanistan, didn't you? Yes, sir. In Iraq. Yeah. We appreciate your service. I know that we do pause one of our, he's all the time reminding me about my veterans discount. We give him a 10% distance discount. He's always, did you ask him if he's a veteran? I believe that he's a veteran. And usually he could tell a veteran from a civilian, I guess, because you know how they act. It's small things you pick up on. It's how they carry themselves. How they carry themselves. Things you may see around the house that'll give it away. You might catch a veteran's tag here or see a folded flag up on a shelf somewhere. There's a lot of them. If it's not posted, I'd say vast majority of us don't ever ask for one. Right. We don't feel what we did. We did what we did for our own reasons. We didn't do it for that. But when somebody brings it up and was like, "Hey, we can offer this discount." It is greatly appreciated. Yeah, well, I'm glad y'all remind me. Because a lot of times, just to be honest with you, I don't think about telling them about it. And that's just like the other day down in Somerville, I didn't realize he was an officer. You're a veteran. You brought that to my attention. And as you did, it made sense. And then the other day, we went up to that one y'all put the water heater in for, he was a veteran. And y'all had told him about the 10% because he asked me about it. But anytime we go in, I want to tell him, I told him, "I appreciate his service." And that's why I give it 10% is to let y'all people, veterans know that we appreciated what y'all done. No matter what, whether you served active, non-active, peacetime, when you sign that bottom line, you kind of give your happy butt to Uncle Sam. And if y'all are noticing that James kind of in lines with Paul, James is actually Paul's stepson. Put up with him for long enough, I reckon. They've been together for a while. That's why James knows he can spot an officer too. Oh yeah. James grew up on army bases. Yeah, tell us about the time you stole their keys. Oh yeah. All right, so all the guys at the house would pick on me as it was. And one evening, they locked me in a tough box, which if you don't know what that is, is like a three and a half foot long by like two foot wide box that's like another two and a half foot deep. Well, they locked me in this tough box for a good minute. And when I finally got out, I sat there and plotted for a little bit. And then I realized that everybody had gone to sleep and I was up playing video games and I went around the house gathering keys to all these new cars that everybody was driving around because they were making all that money on off all these deployments and all. Well, I took the keys and locked them in the very tough box that they locked me in and underneath blankets and everything that they had had packed in them. And it was God, I'd say like six, eight months before they found them. We found them when we were packing them. We found them when they went to move. I was loading my tough box up and I moved all the stuff out and I look in the bottom and there's eight sets of keys. But y'all already had eight new sets though. Yep. They were hot commodity at the Ford dealership. Yep. And that's about the time they changed all the keys to have the chips. Yep. You got in their pocket, but. I did that. Guess they won't walk you in the tough box no more. But, that's something else. That's what I tell, I mean, as like at work, I mean, I tell Channing and everything and them, you know, it's not as tough as it used to be at work. I mean, when I first started plumbing and stuff, they had to pull all the tricks and stuff on you all the time, I mean, it was just something else. Now it's kind of got the. You make us take it easy on Channing. We have to. We have to. It takes a special person to deal with me and games on a regular basis. We all are like. We get where I'll dump and we're like, oh, okay, it's time to mess with me. We all are like me. Y'all pull a joker or something like that, but you know, used to, I mean, heck, I remember one time they, my dad had a dump truck and he would leave it on site, wanted to put debris in and he'd put them in the house and then take it and dump it. Well, the two guys building the house, pooped in a bucket for like a week and put it in the truck, took the keys out of the truck, and throw the keys in the bucket and lock the doors and it was a long weekend in July. I think it was July the 4th or something like that. Or when they come back, they couldn't get, you know, you couldn't get in it. So he called the locksmith, locksmith opens it. It is, the older hits him in the face he goes to gagging and puking on the side of the road. And then they have to take the bucket out and defumigate the truck and then get a key for the truck. So I mean, we ain't that bad down there. I mean, we might pull a little something on it, but you know. That pocket, the pocket knife when I started, him and Lonnie's probably gullible, the most gullible thing we got, you know. I don't know the day we had to call you about the propress you thought we were messing with you. Yeah, I did think I was kidding. Definitely not, I was in pure panic mode. Well, it's not every day, you know, six, $7,000 walks off. And, but, you know, I reckon that was a thing. I think that was like a reoccurring thing up there where y'all was working at. I mean, several people. The only company that got hit. Yeah, several plumbing companies got hit. They finally got a whole truck and Jeter. Oh wow. Yeah, they took the whole truck. Yeah, the whole truck, the whole Jeter. I reckon we didn't make out as bad as some of the others then. I mean, you can look at it that way. I reckon they got the truck, I think they got it back eventually, but I mean, you know, as well as I do, the man don't tell them what they done to it while they had it. And you know, truck's one thing, but people are like, oh man, they stole the truck, but Jeter's, I mean, my gosh, how much did it cost? I mean, we had that one that come demoed was $75,000. Yeah. I mean, it didn't work. Not to mention the funds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It caused the new software on it. Yeah, we don't want that one, nah. And then after that, not to mention the funds you lose that on, cause you don't have that piece of equipment. Oh yeah, that's true. I mean, it's just, it's something all the time, to be honest with you with plumbing. I mean, that's like my big F-250 is down right now. I mean, it was running fine. I went to Wyantor, Georgia to come back. I got still under mission, you know? So I got to take it in the shop Monday, $2,000. Just, I mean, but that's the, that's the cost of having a newer vehicle. When they don't give a lot of trouble, but when they give trouble, they cost a lot. Speaking of, you've got yours in the shop. We're just having that run of bad luck right now, aren't we? They haven't even started it yet. They haven't? No. Who broke the mirror? What mirror? The one that gives all this bad luck. I don't know. James might. No, that was definitely you. I guess you could call it Lonnie with the window. True, true. That's another- They still swear that Lonnie broke that window. See that's another one. I mean, we come in, a window's broken, the plumber done it. What was we doing over at the window? I mean, they found poor Lonnie, toting pipe, and it was Lonnie's fault. Just to be honest with you, I was like, "Oh yeah, he probably done it." (Laughing) It was enough to where you were like, "You by yourself?" I was like, "Yeah?" Like, "Did he break that window?" I was like, "Nope, I have pictures." He did not break the window. Let me call it- (Mumbling) If they done something, I'll be all any of y'all would come and say, "Oh yeah, I broke the window." But Lonnie, he's moving mine. Normally something like that, especially, it's like, I'm gonna try to get to you and let you know the information before it comes from somebody else. Information going up is much better than information coming up. I'm gonna get Lonnie on this podcast. (Laughing) Lonnie! We're gonna build it up. Y'all gonna get to meet Lonnie. He is no joke. He's probably one of the best guys you'll ever meet. He works hard. He works super hard. We do it again. We give him a hard time. He's our youngest guy. We probably give him the most hell of anybody. Lonnie's older than me. Y'all both look very sorry to see y'all facial hair. But Lonnie is our, he's our, what do they call that? Amish plumber. Yeah. He likes it. I don't like him coming over here and wearing his Amish hats. You definitely did the edge jump. It goes from James at Lonnie at 21 and 23 to me and Channing. And then it jumps 15 years to meet back in Seth. Yeah. Well, y'all are about 38. Yeah, I think Seth, 35. We got one off a camera over here that's camera shy. He's our live studio audience. Yeah, the three older ones, we're only about six months apart. Yeah, and then there's me. I'm 45. And then the girls in the office there, I was about y'all's age because you ain't most still a lady's age. It's about, just about. Then the head honcho's eight years old. She runs around here. She runs the shop. Yeah, she told me the other day, she said, she said, "Boy, it's hard running a business, ain't it, Daddy?" I said, "Yeah, it is." She got out this morning, I had some lots cleared. You know, them lots we're gonna build on. She said, "Hey, did you bring that check for him?" (Laughing) I said, "What are you talking about?" One of her teachers cleared the lots after work and left her horn. And she said, "I told him I'd have him a check Friday." (Laughing) I was like, "Well, that's good." I said, "Yeah, I didn't think about it, but yeah, I do need to pay him. I appreciate you." I think all of us have come to terms where she's gonna be the boss when we finally retire. Yeah, I just hope she picks up on the fact that you got to be appreciative of your guys and rely, you know, a lot of companies get to the point that you become a number. And if, I mean, just to be honest with you, if y'all all didn't show up on a day, one day, I mean, I couldn't do everything I got to do. I mean, it's just, that's why a lot of times I make sure y'all understand, I appreciate y'all staying over an hour or two or two or three hours if you're up, you know, driving an hour and a half home. I mean, that's why, you know, that's why you open your phone sometimes and you'll have a little, you know, thank you kind of gratitude on it and stuff like that. But lunches are appreciated, boss. Yeah, the lunches, the lunches, yeah. Cover that food bill every now and then, that's the biggest. That's awesome, that's awesome. Yep, when I let y'all eat, I feel like sometimes I give y'all so much to do and y'all, y'all are like me, y'all just full go eating because the other day, I think it was three o'clock before you ever got a sandwich with it. Yeah, about 3.34. We were towards the end of the day before we sat down and ate. Yeah, and on top of having a busy schedule, I was like, well, we didn't get the oil changed in all the bands. Y'all was doing work and rotating bands out to go get the oils changed. It's just a, a lot of, I know a lot of people that move work for themselves and they do, but to run an efficient company, there's a lot of gears it's gotta turn. There's a lot of, y'all see it. I mean, there's a lot of parts to it. I mean, there's trucks maintenance, there's, you know, continuing education, there's training. I mean, that's, I'm trying to get, I'm trying to carve out some time for you right now to go get some Generac training. You know, we've just started to do Generac, doing Generac. Channing, he's up there putting in one, finishing a gash to one now and everything. I mean, and honestly, I mean, you ain't been on the Generac cranking yet, but I think you did good as a service. I really need to send you and Channing, you know, that way, that way we've got two. And then, then I, we need to get him, I need to get him sent now. We need to get him some, I'd like to get him certified and, you know, get him a set of certified, not plumbing, but set of tank installer life. And that way he got them that way. Cause that's all I got. Guy called me a while ago. He's like, well, you was the only certified installer on the site, right? Yeah, I was. You mean, that's true. So, you know, it's one of them things, you try to get all this stuff done and there's just, and then on top of that, the phone rings all the time. So like, There's always something new. Yeah. And then, Can't count how many times we cleared out our service fusions and, And then refresh. Refresh, yeah. This is the last one. We said it the other day, it's like, Oh man, this is, it's 4.30. We're gonna rock out. And then it's, oh, by the way, we're gonna put a sewer line in. Oh yeah, that, On the way. Well, it was supposed to just be fixed and broke pipe, but once you get there, it's like it was, you know, Yeah. You dig it up and it's just, Anything other than the full replacement there would have been rough. Right. Well, that was in my chin in them last night. They went to, it was the pump of tank. They pumped the tank. It was still stopped up. You could see roots in it. Well, they go over there. First thing I do is jerk K-60 off with three quarter, three quarter line and an auger head on it, run it up through there. They get the roots and half of the orange bird pipe. Well, that's right. You got two options there. You dig it up, replace it and tell the guy good luck or you dig it all the way back up to the cast iron and fix it right. So they dug it all the way back up to the cast iron and we got in late. I mean, I went up out there and been back in my six o'clock yesterday and they wound up not getting out of seven 30. You know, I was like, y'all, I thought you had me up there and we could actually clear everything. For y'all to go up there and y'all went up there and we thought, and then you turn our old system off, turn our old system back on, you've got two hours of trying to figure out why you ain't got water. People running off with your gravel. No, yeah, they still with your gravel. Do they steal it or do they just do it? No, if it went in the dumpster. The dumpster trailer. They thought he was doing it a favor. I asked the thing about it. Yeah. I said next time that. He said, well, no, no, no. We're gonna line up a little bit better when we continue to rest of these up there. Yeah, well, we talked about that way. And that's the thing about it is, is next time we kind of know how it goes now. It's like, it's every time. Everything can't be perfectly smooth. If it was perfectly smooth and it easy, everybody would do it. I mean, I have trouble. I have, you know, I have a tendency. My mouth has the tendency to overload my butt. I've got a smart mouth sometimes. I've been witness. You concur, you concur. I've been witness a couple of times. But now that's not to say it doesn't take a good bit to get you to that point too though. Right. It takes a good bit to get me to that point, but it also aggravates me. I gotta be aggravated when you get to that point. But there's a lot out there that aggravates me. I try not to. I mean, these podcasts are really therapeutic. You know, you get on here and you get to talk about some of this stuff and you realize, I go back and watch them. But we were talking last night that he had to explain to his girlfriend that, hey, riding with dad is not always, it's not fun. It's not a fun time. I'm gonna get yelled at for three things, two of which have nothing to do with what I did. We had one other step there in the morning I was doing the sewer line replacement. You wasn't digging exactly right. But now when dad worked on that, and I'm gonna get dad on here eventually, a lot of understand where I come from. And, but I mean, I know where you're coming from. I never, I still can't. I still can get on a track ho. And I'll never be able to run it to baby specification. You know, I'll never be able to run it in day stress. That's why him and I laugh when you get it Channing. (Laughing) Channing is my son-in-law and I'd look at him, you know, I've been with him enough now. I'm starting to look at him kind of like, I'm saying, you know, I treat him like a son. This is my Lonnie, I got, I'll father him. And you stay here long enough, I'm gonna do it to you because you're young. You know, you just get to that point. And it's not a father's really trying to be super condescending on you. And it sounds like, and he is, he's wanting you to do better than he does. That's it. And that's, I want Channing to do better than I done. I want Lonnie to do better than I done. I want to tell you and Lonnie and even, you know, even the younger guys, you know, heck, I've been there. I've done that. I've been in that ditch trying to do what you're doing. And that's the dumbest way to do it in the world. Now that conveying that, the way you convey that, is what, you're not in ditch. And you're like, move it. Why are you digging on top of the pipe? I told you not to dig on top of the pipe. I told you to dig next to the pipe. You're crushing the pipe. And I'm crushing the pipe. And the hot water's going, huh? And I think you could a sewer line or a fight. But there's worse people, there's worse, there's worse. I've seen worse happen. I've seen, we try to keep our stuff down to a dull roar. I've seen people-- You get my pinky with that shovel and that hole in that lady's front yard. A crushed pinky with a shovel, it hurts pretty hard. Yeah. But I've seen fathers and sons come to Pumbos and jobs. You know, it just, it happens a lot. I mean, a lot of fathers and sons can't work together. I used to work a guy, I used to work a guy that he couldn't work with his stepdad. And he worked good for us, but he just didn't work for stepdad. And that's fine too. You know? It just boils down like that. Sometimes it does, I mean. Zach will tell you, he said that's why he can't work with his daddy. Right, I mean, it's not, it's probably because we're a lot alike. Yep. That's why I just want, me and daddy, we work together all our lives, but we've butted heads, we're a lot alike. I mean-- That is the highlight of him when he was younger after me and his mom split. I'd still get phone calls. It's like, it's you. It's like I still have you in the house. He acts just like you. Right. Right, right, right. Just hang the phone up and smile. (Laughing) That comes back to biterman and the tail more. Yeah, no, you, we are-- Oh my god, no. Yeah, and then, you know, that's why we try to keep y'all out of the valley each other now, you know what I mean? We good a couple days out of the way. Yeah, we can bring y'all together some, but we try to keep you-- Yeah, just a brief. Yeah, we can count one day a week. One day a week, cause somebody don't show up. (Laughing) Mr. George. Oh, Mr. George. Mr. George. But, I guess he is the new guy. I guess technically I would be. Oh, that's true. Yeah. You're the renew guy. Yeah, what Channing said, I took a hiatus, or leave a bad sense. Leave a bad sense. That's a good thing. That was another poor way of combaling my hunger. I mean, that's what I'm saying. We probably need to have somebody come in and do counseling. Like just the group anger management. Group anger management and counseling. (Laughing) You know, but I'm afraid to do that, I'm afraid we'll all be committed. Yeah, yeah. Cause you gotta be a certain level of crazy to be a plumber, tradesman, any kind. I mean, not electricians, they think they're above the grade, you know. We're talking to you. You know, we're talking to them. (Laughing) But, you know, plumbers, HVAC guys, I mean, roofers. Yeah. Roofers versus plumbers. I will say that. I mean, they all have a tendency to be-- They're on 120 degree roof in the middle of June, July. Right. Yeah. Right, and then everybody that works on construction site has the tendency to be, you've got to have a level of crazy to wanna do it. Yeah. You know, why wouldn't you wanna be in a cooled office or something like that? But everybody can't do office work. No. You know, that's the thing about it, that's what makes the world go round. You know, everybody can't do office work. And unfortunately, in America, we've got as many tradesmen as we used to. That's one of the biggest thing we weren't into. The younger generation isn't coming into them like they did before. I mean, that's not, you know, we wanna try to find a guy to go in the van with you, but I mean, they just, you put your fillers out, they come in and interview, and the ones that do come in and interview, I don't think they know what they're getting into. No, you can't, in our industry, you can't view it as a job, you have to view it as a career choice. Right, yeah. Because this is a skill set that you're gonna have to learn and continue to do. And devote time and dedication to. Even after 10 years, I still pick stuff up from you. Well, it's a long, it's a long, it's a long, that's the long game that, you know, it's one of the things that you've got to learn it. I mean, I told y'all, I still learn stuff from Ezekiel and them, you know. They just do it different. They've been on commercial jobs and learned to do it more efficient, more faster. No, I will say that is one thing you just about can't touch them on there. On speed, yeah. And efficiency. Yeah. And efficiency. Yeah. Well, that does come too, when you have a set thing that you do on a ranch. Right, we've talked about that, you know. They do rough ends. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, and that's the good thing about rough ends, they're pretty cut and dry, but you go in a house to set it out. Setting a house out is probably, it's cleaner, but it's tedious, you know. You're working with water, you've got to make sure there ain't no leaks or anything like that. And one slip up and you've got a leak, and then once you've got one leak, you know, the whole house ain't on the ground. You know, that's the way customers look at it, you know. Oh, he left a leak on that drain, and why else did he leave a leak? So they go to pickin' everything, you know. And I think that's where a lot of these houses, they have nightmare houses where they say, "Oh, well, I got this house," and they don't look at it. Well, they find one problem, and then they pick out everything. I mean, unfortunately, the world is not perfect. The ground shifts, everything happens. You know, it's gonna, you're gonna have trouble. We try to be as perfect as we can. I mean, that's, you know, we strive for perfection. But sometimes we're just human, we are. But what do y'all think the next trend's gonna be in plumbing? I mean, we're seein' black faucets and thankless water heaters right now. Yup. You know, I mean, the mowing flows are startin' to catch on. I think it's gonna start merging more to the smart technology. I do tell you, that's what I think. I think you're gonna wind up, you can go wind up with smart faucets, and like a lot of the kitchen faucets are already that way now. Yeah. They've got the sensors in them and everything else. Yeah, like my grandma's got a kitchen faucet in her house down in South Georgia. It's got sensors in it that picks up the temperature of the water, and there's a light inside of it that changes. Red for hot, green for warm, and blue for cold. See, I think they're gonna, I think it's, you know, this AI battle they're havin', you know. You know, I think it's gonna eventually make it over in the plumbing, you know. You go in and talk to your intelligent toilet. Yeah. What do you need, Mr. Mitchell? I wanna take a number two. Okay, let me massage your bum and-- Well, some of the toilets overseas that are like that, they have the-- Yeah. Like a lot of the Japanese-style toilets have a tremendous amount of settings on them. Yeah. Well, when I done the, when I done the podcast with the cool lead that comes and does, you know, we done the one about travel and bathroom accessibility, he had been to Japan, and that was one of his biggest takeaways from Japan was the fact that Japan had better facilities than we had. They was nicer, and they were state of the art. So then he sent me pictures and stuff, and they did, they had like buttons. I mean, why me buttons you need on a toilet? A flush? I mean, but I reckon they had flushing, but days and-- Yeah, that heated seats. They probably did. I mean, I asked him, but I'm sure they did. You may have been there at some point, but I mean, I think technology's gone into the bathroom eventually, you know, and more than it already has. I mean, you've already got the smart lights, you know, the one that's got the-- Thing around it that play-- Not just that, now they've got, you know, you've got your water heater tied into your Wi-Fi in your house. Yeah, yeah. You can adjust the-- You can adjust the-- Yeah, well, that's tankless, you know. You can adjust the air and everything like that. You can adjust that, you can adjust your temperatures off your phone. Yeah, all them are, all them are, all them RXUs that we put in have the availability to put in a Wi-Fi modem in them and be able to talk and not talk to you, but send you the information. And even like the factory Clayton homes now, like ours, we, our water heater, you can connect to your Wi-Fi and your phone and go back and forth with it. Yeah, I mean, you're probably too young to even remember life without a phone. Yeah. You know, I talked to Kaitlyn, my daughter, she's 22. And, you know, I don't know if she remembers life without a phone, I remember life without a phone. I remember party lines and stuff like that, you know. The second phone line for the house. Right. So you can have one for the dial-up internet and then one for the actual phone line for the house. Yeah, we didn't have internet for a long time. And then we got into the, (Imitates Engine Revving) The internet, you know. Then you played Wyoming Trail. Yep. On the internet with other people. And then as it got, then I got a pager. I remember getting a pager. Then you got, then I remember- Nokia that was a brick, but it was bulletproof. Well, I remember, that was before that, my dad and then I got bag phones that was in the truck. I mean, I thought it was, cause it was like night rider stuff, you know. Hello? You know, but they'd set in a truck, and they had to use the power off the truck to be, and they didn't have its own standalone battery, like, you know, these new phones here. And then, and then they come out with the Nokia bricks, you know, and I think I still got someone somewhere that still works. I wish my next tailback, the chirp. Yep. When they came out with the walkie talkies on the next tail phone. Well, you know, that's what I was thinking when we got the push to talk. I was- I was hoping it'd work like that, but they wasn't quite as good as them, I don't think. You gotta have a software issue. Yeah, I mean, every time we turn around, it's like, "Errrr." You know, and if you're listening to T-Mobile, fix it. Well, they work great when they're working. Yeah, and they worked good for like first four months we had them, they were solid. And they're not durable though, they had to get with Nokia on the durability, cause I know two guys that's done busted the face out of both, two of them. Honestly, that's a good way to test product, just let James and I have it for about a week. It survives by- I mean, I don't even think yours made it a week. In the antennas. First time. The antennas. Three days in, I've broken the antennas. I was gonna say, I remember- Pocket clip, pocket clip came off first day. Yeah, I didn't- I didn't feel intact. I didn't even put the pocket clip on your new one, did I? No. I didn't think so, I was like, "You don't need to park your clip." Nope. Just put it in. But, you know, they work good when you're out and need them, but sometimes they just, they take a dive on the service sometimes, I don't know, it's just been one of them things. And, you try to bring this technology into plumbing and make yourself more efficient. And I know these big companies, they do the same thing. I get, you know, I wonder sometimes how they deal with some of this stuff, I mean. But then you hear war stories about them. You know, it's just, it's constantly something, trying to find that happy medium for a company like ours. You know, where everybody makes enough money to be happy and the customers are happy because they're paying for a service and they feel like the service is, you know, good and they feel like it's an affordable service. And then, you know, but then you got, you know, like inspectors and, you know, insurance native here and there. (Mumbles) It's over here, it's like trying to balance the spread all the time. And on top of that, you gotta keep your truck stock and tools, I mean, huh. I mean, I feel like I'm all the time buying tools and it's not because y'all are losing them or getting them stolen, it's because a lot of times, well, you know. The wear and tear on them. It's the wear and tear on them and something new comes out and makes it more, you know, a better product. That's why, you know, I tell y'all all the time, I'm trying to set y'all up for success. I mean, if you've got the new pro press or the new mega press or the new expander or the quicker expander, we can be a little bit better, you know, or like the Delta kits I bought y'all in the pack house. I mean, that's got every Delta parts you need, you shouldn't need any. I mean, it's gonna make, you know, if you go to a house and you're 10 miles from a nearest park, I hope you've got something, but you need one for a Delta, you need one for a mowing, you need one for a cola, you need one for a girly. I mean, that's the thing about it. You can have a semi truck and still not got every parts you need when it comes to plumbing. Yep. But you want to talk more. What's that they say? If you're gonna be a plumber, you better have plenty of gas money. Yeah, who told y'all that? I think it was Brody. Right. (Laughing) We ain't gonna go back? Nope. That's Zach's cousin. (Laughing) I didn't buy it from the union. Oh, you got a family rule, but real double. (Laughing) Oh, Lori, Lord. But as this rain sets in, we're gonna have to be doing some stuff inside now. That's the good thing about them circle Ks, they'll be on concrete inside. You just won't be able to get you a Slurpee while you're down there, because we gotta take a Slurpee machine out. Put it back in. That's fine, as long as they got Red Bull. Red Bull, yeah. They still sold drinks last time, so we're solid. They're actually gonna shut this one down. Really? For real? Yeah, but it's in the middle of town, so you'll be able to go grit you something somewhere. But they're gonna shut it down for a couple days to get the tear out done and start. Yeah, the one we did in Barnell, they had just a little fold out leg table, and they're safe sitting next to it. That was it. Well, I said they was gonna shut down. I took it there, they were gonna shut down, because they was talking about how many days we had to do, like busting, we gotta bust a trench from the bathroom to the polar pop counter instead of, you don't wanna do a pump this time. And so they was talking about that, so I thought maybe they were gonna shut down, but they might not. But this one's actually got a truck stopped behind it. Okay, this'll be a new experience, not have to worry about running calls in between and just being able to concentrate on them. That's another big thing, is when we're on some of these bigger jobs, it's like we're having to keep track of time, make sure we're not getting lost, and there's nothing ahead of us that we didn't think about when we come across another issue that we picked up trying to get everything done. Well, that is something that I talked about having to really work on, is trying to mediate, not putting service calls on somebody that's doing a big job. And I would like to set aside a truck just to do service calls, but we get so many service calls. I mean, I thought on the way up here, we got a call and it was our emergency. I don't know if I'm down there, but I was right in the telephone. If I'm in the telephone, I don't know, I don't know, I don't do it all. But I'm sitting here now, I'm sitting there, we're having a pump test, and it's starting to get a little off the hood. If y'all can't see me on the pump test, we'll be down at my watch, we're living there on everything, and I'm with the never-wearing man to move out here. But, you know, we start out a day and we've got a certain plan to move, and that plan goes to a raid because I and me that they worked on, they went over there, and when I turned the water on, water's coming out everywhere. Something's frozen busted. That's what's happened. And it was probably because the heat and air was off because of the gas leak. I didn't think about that, but their gas had been off during that cold weather. They don't tell them what happened, that's the new way. So when we get down here, y'all probably gonna have to go find out what's been in the middle and be chatting some relief. As it was coming in here, I got that call, and then I never did hear exactly what happened or about it, and I think I got a text a while ago that they needed something, but hopefully Lonnie's out and about and he can get them going. Stuff like that. Ever changing. Water leak we went and did the other day. We thought we left that knot, then they were good. Meter stopped and everything else, we were just getting air out of the line. Blowed another part. Next morning it was busted in another spot. So yeah. Went from a water leak to three water leaks. Three water leaks. It's kind of like ripping a Band-Aid off. At that point, you get some of that stuff, you're like, there's patching and then let's just rip the Band-Aid off of it and fix this thing. It's like the sewer line other than that. You could Band-Aid that, but you call me and you're like, "Look, if he's good with it, "give him a price of ripping the Band-Aid off." I mean, and then a lot of times on that, we'll take any consideration you wasn't expecting that. I feel like I give him a pretty decent price to rip that Band-Aid off and move on. I mean, we try to stay pretty competitive. Other day a guy called me from Ringo and he said, "Hey," he said, "what do you get to change "a 50 gallon electric water heater?" I said, "Well, right now, if you get the water heater "from us, we'll bring the water heater out, "take it out, put a new expansion tank on it, "make sure it's right, change it out for $1,575." He said, "Man, come on." He said, "Last company called me, "tried to get me a signed contract that day for $2,800." I mean, for a tanked water heater? Is that the gas one that we swapped to, an electric? No, it was electric. We got pulled off yesterday. It was the one y'all was supposed to do before y'all went to South Pittsburgh and I said, "Nah, we're gonna do that." I'll get another team to do it while y'all are in South Pittsburgh, but I mean, I mean, we can just about convert our gas tank to a gas tankless for that. I mean, yeah, we weren't too far off, that one you and I quoted for that couple the other day. Right, I mean, but I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm still shooting a little low, but I mean, I feel like there's only so much you can, you know, there's only so much people can pay me for a service. I know trades is a premium commodity right now, but we still gotta keep it to where people can afford it. Yeah. And I see people running into that a lot more with the commission base. Yeah, that's why I told y'all, I told y'all I'll probably never do on commission. I didn't say probably, I won't. I've got to experience that and-- It scared the crap out of you. (Laughing) Nah, I was-- You ain't want too much of it. I couldn't do it, it's-- Well, it comes down, you go into Granny's house and-- The level of product drops significantly once you reach that point, because then the tech is no longer concerned about the product he's putting out, he's concerned with what he's making it down to the level. Correct. You gotta find, you know, that's what I'm saying. If he's worried about that, he's not putting out good quality, and he's gonna give them something they probably don't need too. I mean, it's just like, you know, you go out, it's like the water heater you went out the other day. It was leaking. The water heater's call was the water heater was leaking. I said, take on the water heater with you, and if you can't fix it, change it. But you call me, you said, hey, it's a pressure problem, it's not the water heater. The pressure's a little bit high, and the temperature is too. Change the pressure reducer, change the pop off. And you've got a $400 call versus a $1500 call. But if you're looking for commission, which one are you gonna sell? The commission guy would have sold him the hot water heater when it didn't work, he just sold him the pressure reducer again. Yeah, he just sold him the pressure reducer after the fact, because it still would have done it. Right, I mean, if you go out to a water heater and it's dripping out the pop off, it's usually the pressure. I mean, everybody thinks it's got too hot. Well, if it's got a short underground element, but you need to change the pop off, change the element, then check the pressure. Because most of the time, a pop off is good for 180 pounds. Yep. All right, well, it's good for 180 pounds that sell me in the grooves. If it super heats the water, you've got 150 degree water and 100 pound of pressure, it's gonna drizzle. It's gonna go, yeah. You know, but if you come out and the water heater ain't got a short underground element and it's drizzling, your pressure's spiking it sometimes. Yeah. It's spiking, it's drizzling out. So that's why I told him, go ahead and change the pop off because it's already sprung. And then put them on the pressure reducer because their pressure reducer, A's without or B ain't got one and they've changed some of the infrastructure around. And we've got as many neighborhoods going in they're adding pumps and boosters and all that stuff. Like over there in the valley before the lift station sends it up the mountain, they get pressure spikes over there all the time. Right, right. And then once they do that, we get, you know, you get stuff like what we were just talking about. Nighttime when nobody's using it, climbs up and it'll be 80 pounds and then you'll be up the next day when everybody's up and using water and it'll be at 50, 60. But I don't know, you know, I don't know how many calls I've been out on that I could have sold the water heater for that same reason, you know. Oh, your water heater's leaking. Yeah. You know, you need a $2,000, you know, $1,500 water heater or $2,800 is what they was talking about. And that's why, that's why I love the love the run I'm a commission based plumbing company. I don't have the, I'm not built that way. I don't have the characteristics. No, yeah. And that's another thing that I could never for that reason is I'm not that person. I'm trying to help people out as much as I can. Right, I mean. I can't off of them. And that rural compass coming in. And I think that's why when we have a, I think that's why when we have the downs that we was talking about when we first come into this podcast, I think that's why it bothers us so bad. Yeah. Is we don't mean to have a disgruntled push. No. We don't mean to have a bad attitude, but you know, you put a certain situation you're going to and plumbing problems is like, like the people that had the busted pipes, they're already highly stressed. Yeah. You know, and you go in there and you're aggravated that day. It's gonna, you know, it can back and forth. That's one good thing you gotta say about Channing. That sucker can be on in the middle of a house fire. And he's calm and cool and collected. Yeah. Most of the, to the customer. Yeah, to the customer. Until he has to call you. He goes out to the van, locks himself in the van and calls me. Yeah. Cause he don't want the customer to say, you know. (Siren Blaring) He doesn't break down. You know, and then there's a man going, just be able to stop, be able to get stopped, slap yourself, get in there, you know. I mean, I do and I get on that telephone and I, and that's another thing. You get on a telephone and you're trying, y'all tell me a situation and I get half of the situation and I'm trying to answer it and I'm getting aggravated. Like yesterday, when I was asking, what side do you want the handle on? I had to mount that valve, yeah. Put it in the middle. Right. And I was like, I know where you want the valve. Where do you want the handle? And you were like, in the middle. You was just calling it something different than I want to call it. I call that a home field, you call it a handle. And then when you're like, oh God, I know what you're talking about now. And we had a whole 10 minute conversation about a handle that I was trying to figure out, why did we send the handle off center of the tub? Although, glad we did have that conversation because the first valve we put in didn't have that red tag. Well, that's what I was telling you. And that number three port, we didn't know. I thought, why do they do that? Why do they design that valve to do that? I mean, y'all was wondering what we're talking about. Walter makes a devoter valve and you put it in. And when you put it in, it goes, it's got an inlet and outlet for a shower head. And then it's got two outlets on the side. Well, the outlet on the right hand side has to be capped if you're just using three functions, which is the spout, the shower and the handheld. Well, if you do it the other way, you can't make it work right. You can't buy the right function, but you can do a four function. I make a four function twist. And what it does is it's a shower head, the handheld, this over here, and then the spout. But what that three function does is wind up the spout, the handheld and both at the same time. But it's gotta come out this left hand side. Got it. And we know how I know that. Put one in backwards. I'm gonna have to tear one out because I put it in backwards. Yesterday. The solder cap was rough coming out of that one because he had done soldered the cap in the wrong side. But we ran it down to the end of the time. We ran it down to the end of the time. I'm Daniel Mitchell. I'm Paul. I'm James. We're down at Mitchell's Plumbing at 206 North Duke Street. Come see us, give us a holler at 706-638-8914. Look us up on the web at Mitchell's Plumbing GA.com. We're on Facebook at Mitchell's Plumbing and Pots. We have Pots on the spot portable restrooms. We got portable restrooms. But that's it for today. This is Plumb Delusional. We'll see you next time. (Upbeat Music)

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