58 . RPI Plumbing & Fire - Ryan - Jeremy Jouppe

Ryan & Jeremy join the show to talk about residential fire protection . Ryan talks about the up , Jeremy talks briefly about his extreme sports and his pup Oakley 

https://www.rpiplumbingandfire.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jeremyjouppe/ 

www.trevorbuckco.com 

Edited & Produced by Daisie Media 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to the Trevor Buck Podcast, episode 58, and we're here today with RPI Plumbing and Fire. We got Ryan and Jeremy. Welcome, guys. Thank you. And uh this is a surprise that Ryan's with us today. This is awesome. We have a big uh youper following. So you grew up in UP.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Absolutely. You can't take it from me.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

What school did you go to?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hancock.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Okay. And what year did you uh move out here?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I came out in summer of 87, but I didn't move until fall of 1988.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Uh-huh. And uh when you moved out here, were you were did you were you plumbing already, or how'd you get into plumbing?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Uh Matt Eck. I knew Matt Eck and he got me a job with his dad, plumbing at egg plumbing.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Uh-huh. And uh then uh when did you start your own company?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

1994 we started doing side jobs and that kind of stuff. Uh and uh so we did that for about a year and started officially full-time, ninth March of 1996. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

And at at some point you got the opportunity to get into uh fire protection or what do you call it, sprinkler systems?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, it came up on a job in 1999. We were uh bidding a uh home for Keys and Schuler uh project, Forty House project, and um they needed fire sprinklers, so they called me in the office and they said, Hey, we want one person to do both. And would you do them? And I said, you know, sure, no problem. But I had a lot to learn.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Right. Keno, tell me a little bit about I've been into some uh commercial construction, but in residential, how do they uh how do the residential fire sprinkler system work? Is it a wet system, dry system? Is there a pump?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

How does it work it's uh dry system strictly off uh the local pressure?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

If you don't have good pressure, you have to bring a pump in, but that's usually for the plumbing and the sprinkler, but not always.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Okay. And um what was I gonna say with that? Now, so when you're doing uh fire sprinkler now for contractors, are you doing both plumbing and sprinkler or is sprinkler only for some?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Mostly sprinkler only, but we still do some plumbing.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

And you have sold the company to your son Jeremy, who's with us today. Welcome. Thank you. And uh so how many employees are with RPI right now?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Uh right now there's three full-time, four, counting my sister. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

And so are you the the boss?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Essentially now, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

And what is that uh stressful? Because you're young.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Uh it has its good days and bad days for sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Hold the mic up. But yeah, no, it's been fun. So it's been the last it's been three years now, or coming up on three years, and it's been a lot of learning and just kind of learning how to manage everything and taking the you can't walk away from nothing.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Right. And were you involved with the business side of things before you took over? Or were you you obviously you probably learned in the field how to install these systems?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, I mean, given I've been around it since for as long as I can remember, the plumbing. I think more I learned the fire sprinklers more in depth than the plumbing. Yep. And then I went away a couple years, spent some time in North Dakota, kind of tried some other stuff out, and then eventually I think COVID brought me back.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Once COVID, I moved home and then kind of with the mindset that I would like to take it over. Okay. If he was gonna give me the opportunity to. Right. And yeah, and then ended up starting ta taking it over from him.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Right. And Ryan, I want to ask you this. So um there's a not everybody can do it, right? There's a certain certification, or is it is it limited, or is it not not any plumber can go all of a sudden say I'm gonna start offering fire protection.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

No, you have to get license for it. You have to take a test at the state level.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

And and and not too many others are doing that, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Uh they kind of make it harder to get than it actually is. Okay. Um, but uh you gotta kind of know the ropes. But when I went in there, they encouraged me, the fire marshal at the time said, Come on in, you know, take this and I'll walk you through it. Right. But they don't do that now. It's it's a little more political where they kind of encourage um like almost to the point where they kind of say you can't do it, but you you know you can, but you gotta kinda know what to Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And um so in our area here in Southwest Washington, when is it required that you have to it is a requirement in some is it a square footage, is it distance from a hydrant? What makes you required to put in fire sprinkler protection?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

The municipalities decide uh if they're gonna enforce it or not enforce it, and they usually start out small little flag lots and that kind of stuff. And the fire marshal is typically behind uh giving the builders uh benefits to putting them in. You know, maybe they can get away with one entrance or less fire hydrants, or and they kind of go that way. Uh Camas Washugals situation that finally come to the board and they voted it mandatory for every home in the area. So it kind of works its way that way.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

So every home right now in Camas Washugal has fire sprinkler.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yes, every new home has to have one.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

I did not know that. And your guys' location, you're nice and close to Camas Washugal. Is that by design?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Well yeah, that's uh part of the reason. You know, a lot of our work is in uh that area. Sure. And uh so when we were home business working at a home, we had an it's an extra 18-minute drive every day there and back, you know, four times for the guys.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Right. Huh. Hey, did did you grow up eating pasties? Oh man, you got any? You gotta tell us about pasties. How about Jeremy? Do you eat pasties? It's a youper thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I think I've actually had one. Last time I was in the UP, I think we I did get introduced to a good pasty.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah, it's something we grew up with, and we really like them. If you go to crops, you can get the pasty with the gravy. And boy, that's top notch.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Love it. That's awesome. So have you been paying attention to the uh the snowfall up there in the UP this winter?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Oh, yeah. You miss it? Uh uh, not really, but I don't have anything against it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

I've got a couple buddies who are sick of it. I send them pictures of green grass and stuff here and they they whine a little bit. Yeah, I'm sure winter gets long. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

So uh so right, what are you you're retired now? No, it feels like it, but um just kind of helping Jeremy and I got other things going on and you do some uh farming. Farming and did some driving. I still do some driving, and then uh we built uh duplex too. So I got plenty of things going on.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Oh, that's awesome. Are you part of the duplex project, Jeremy? Yeah, just him and I were did it. Very cool. Where'd you build that at? Cathalama. Right, right. That's a cool town. Is it finished?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

You renting it or selling it or we're selling it. Okay. You got it on the market?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, got it on the market, and uh we actually split it into two units, and we're so we got one that's supposed to close this week, so uh hopeful.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Right. And Jeremy, you do some uh some what motocross and snowmobiling? A little bit. Does does Ryan watch what you do?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Uh I don't know. I don't know if he's uh seen that much of whatever.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Those jumps give me an upset stomach just watching.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I mean uh he did say the other day, tell me that he doesn't want he doesn't like to see see us what we do out there.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah, I am uh and you you were uh when you were you busted up last summer?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah, I broke my femur in August. We we just got home from a Europe from we him and I went on a Europe trip and I was home for like a week and broke my femur.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

And what you missed the jump? What happened?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

No, I was riding up on my buddy's um freestyle ramp and just went tried a trick and messed up on it and found the ground.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

That's brutal. Now I think I've seen you've done some stuff into the the foam pit. No, I haven't that was the first time I've ever did anything like that. Okay, okay. Um tell me about your Europe trip. That looked pretty neat. I've seen pictures of that. Where'd you all go?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, that was a lot of fun, really cool experience. We flew into Helsinki, spent the weekend in Helsinki, and then we rented a car and we actually drove all the way up north and then dropped our rental car off right up at the Sweden uh Finland border, took the train down to Lulio, I think, got another rental car, and then drove from there up to Lofoten's and down to uh Stockholm, flew out of Stockholm, down to Berlin for like a day or two, and then we flew to Paris, and then from Paris we flew home out of London.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Three weeks total, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

No, those are that was really neat trip. But Ryan, had you ever been there before? No, never been. That was first time. First time, yeah. You looking forward to going back?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, I'd be interested, really interested in Finland. Okay. Um, we met relatives there on the old homestead, been there for 300 years or longer from our Lebanon piecemean inside of the family. So that was a lot of fun just to see where our ancestors were from on all sides of the family.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

That is really neat. That's awesome. You meet some uh friends over there?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Uh met a few people, but not a lot. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

It was just the two of you rub bumming around and checking things out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

No, it was it was a really cool experience, though, just experiencing that whole. I've always wanted to go over there and to see it. And I'm glad we drove, didn't fly around or trains because we could stop, and you see something, you can stop, and I think we've seen a lot more that way than if we would have did it any other way. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Yep. So and you do some uh snowmobiling.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

So is your uh snowmobiling kind of the same as your motor, a little extreme? You're not just going touring to trails at this point.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, I mean, it's it's gotten to a higher level of doing going for stuff and trying stuff and in the this year was a little bit of a down year. Yeah, it wasn't great. I still rode 2021, 2020. Oh, did you do something like that?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

But uh Rainier, St. Helens, where'd you secret spots?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

No, I I spent a little bit of time in Canada um in like December, and then I spent some time in Wyoming and Idaho.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Oh wow, so you do some some traveling.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Put a lot of miles on, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

And uh you do some uh you might do some filming or some photography of your stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Uh a little bit. I have a camera, but I don't I don't use it as much as like you get some you get some good shots.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah. Somebody's somebody's with you shooting some clear stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Occasionally some of the guys I ride with, they have well, most of them have cameras or there's sometimes filmers there. But okay. That's a lot of times just the iPhones. Really? iPhones do a good job these days. Yeah, you get some uh good stuff. But no, I just it's it's kind of my my out from everything else from the business. I mean the business is my first priority, but snowmobiling's my thing is when the snow comes, you only get it. It's only here temporarily.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Kind of trying to take advantage of it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

You didn't get into playing hockey like your dad did.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

I did. I used to play I used to play goalie all the time. Really? I but I was just telling someone I haven't played in probably like nine years.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Right. So you're getting the itch? I actually did. Yeah, no, it happens. It happens. That's I know for me when I was uh I played when I was single and then got married, didn't play for a while, and then all of a sudden, yeah, all of a sudden guy gets the itch, start playing again.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Well, I got uh was that a month or so ago, someone called me. They're looking for a goalie, like in a panic. It's like they had to I was telling someone they really had to go back in the archives if remember that I played to call me. It's like I don't even have gear anymore. But that that kind of sparked a little bit of an interest. It's like I'm thinking about going to get a another set of goalie gear. And yeah, I never really I don't know, I really enjoyed playing goalie and we're playing out.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

And and what I found out is uh of course it's fun when you're singing, but now you get a little bit older and guys are more mellow, it's just more it's just guys, it's I don't know, to me it's just funner. As I got older, just I don't know, it's a different different relax. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just no one's trying to make it to the NHL anymore. So what's your uh future plans with RP?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Do you have a growth or different areas or um I mean we kind of we stepped away from plumbing for I don't know, what is it, five or six years probably, and it's always been in the name. And so I've wanted to kind of bring that back, not go crazy with it because the fire sprinklers has been the main priority, and that's what we're known for now. But so I'd like to definitely get some more plumbing work back in the system and maybe get a few guys that are wanting to just like just one crew or so, right? And then have however many crews it is. Is I mean we're kind of at the mercy of if more of these jurisdictions and stuff kind of blow it wide open and say mandatory for sprinklers everywhere. We're one of the companies at the forefront of it that we were we're gonna be getting a lot more phone calls than we always already do, and try to be set up as best as possible if that comes where we get even more busy, more work, we're ready for it. And but the card situation does make it challenging, and the fire sprinklers, especially on the residential side, it's not really a knowing trade that it's a possibility, it's not a career really that's looked at like the rest of them are besides the commercial side of it.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Okay, so I'm glad you brought that up because we have young guys listening, and uh we even had uh Jesse with Value Garage Doors on, he talked about he's got guys that are making a good living uh putting in garage doors. But if there's young kids out there that don't know what they're doing, I to me I don't know much about fire, but it looks like it would be a pretty cool gig to put in fire smoker systems in residential.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

It's really there's really not a lot to it when it comes down to once you learn it. And the like the boys I have now, one of them's 18, and then the other ones are a couple or one of them's my age, and then there's one of the guys is he's uh quite a few or older, and then Wade that's been around with him for 15, 20 years, but they they all just that's all they want to do is fire sprinklers.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Um one of them he plumbed a little bit and he does he does like plumbing, but once they started doing fire sprinklers, they kind of just and they enjoy doing I think it's the simplicity of it once you kind of really get it dialed in that what draws the attention.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

And you don't gotta go in the crawl space. No, not very often.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Once in a while.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Okay, so what is the um the certification? Do you have to be a licensed plumber to install it, or what what kind of certification do you have to have as an installer doing fire sprinkler?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Well, there's two. There's uh uh a fitter card for the fire sprinkler, and you can also do it as a plumber.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Okay, so how do you for young kids listening, how do they get into that?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Is that a they go get an apprenticeship card or a trainee card, or how can they get into it if it's well usually once we they start working here, they get a trainee card for the fire sprinkler and a trainee card for the plumbing. Okay. So depending on who they're working with, they can get hours for the trainee fitter or the plumbing.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Okay. And then how many years or hours do they need before they can maybe test or be a journeyman?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

The fire sprinkler is a two-year card. Okay. And of course, plumbing is a three-year residential, four-year journeyman.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Right. Hey, that's hopefully get some uh young guys interested, come knocking on your door. Absolutely. Sounds awesome. Key, have you had any uh failures?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Like uh a system, like a false, you know, starts flowing while you're no, it's all heat related, so you gotta have a fire and that's the only time it goes. Yeah, we have you hear about incidents with uh wedding party playing with helicopters and that kind of stuff where they'll actually set one off and and that, but that's so limited, and we never hear about that anyway, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

And are your uh the ones you're putting in residential, they uh you don't really see them, they have a cap, they're not hanging down from the streets. Yeah, they're concealed. Okay. And uh when one goes off, is it isolated to just that? Just that area. Just that area. Yeah. So and have you had any of your systems like like an actual that went to work?

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah, we had one in Ridge uh Ridgefield. It was a range fire, and it put it out in three minutes before the fire truck got there. And there's been other fires in the area that maybe not our system, but they've put it out.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Okay, so for uh people out there listening that are uh building a home, even if it's not a requirement. Yes, it's a good idea. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

It's life safety, yeah, absolutely protection. Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

And uh how about uh how hard is it to retrofit into an existing home?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

It's pretty difficult to put it into an existing home. There's some that we do expose, and then you can build fake beams and trim around the outside of the rooms, and that's probably the easiest to least expensive way to do it, but it's pretty tough.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Okay, so it's mostly new construction. And you have a um you have a tank? Like a pressure tank?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

If we need a pump, then we need a tank. Okay.

unknown 18:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

That's awesome. What else you got, Jeremy?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I don't know. The retro stuff is yeah, that's we don't get that very often. The most common we see those is uh these adult family care homes that are been popping up. They expand from I think it's like five or six bedrooms to like seven or eight, and then they're getting required to put sprinklers in. And we've actually those are the only times we really do retrofits, and yeah, they they're not ideal though, because if the single stories the single story ones, they're fine. We can get in the attic. We usually pull insulation out, have an insulation company come in and take everything out that way. We can see everything's exposed and we can and those things are hot up there anyways. And right. But and then the guys can we can just work through the attic and pop the heads down where they need to be. But when it comes to like two stories, like I even went to a look at one not just last week or week before, and two-story, and now it's like figuring out if they want all exposed, because otherwise you're gonna be opening up all your lids and trying to find pathways for the pipe and then sealing back up, and it's just gonna get very costly on the homeowners part of it. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah, actually, th there's quite a few of those. They take like a single family home and add five bedrooms to it and then call it an adult. There's quite a few of those.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, there's a a law that changed from like three bedroom to eight bedroom or something, state statewide or nationwide.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Okay, that made it more uh whatever, accessible to to do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah, and then that but one of them is they have to put a sprinkler system in. Okay, okay. How about uh do you do like apartments? Yes, yes, we're licensed to do apartments.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Is that uh I suppose the same thing, whatever area it's required or yeah, same thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

It's all heat activated, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

But um, as far as requirements, is it mostly campus was they doing them here in Vancouver or No, I think that's more on every level.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

All new apartment buildings are pretty much required to have a fire sprinkler.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Okay. And uh does your sprinkler system, is it re does it tie into any sort of alarm or notification? All the like the uh apartments are for sure. Okay, but not not yours.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

You're not required to, but we have some people occasionally that say, hey, they want alarm or a bell or what you know, whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

That's awesome. Jeremy, you gotta tell me about your pup. He's got this cute little pup named Oakley. Yeah, just got it.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

It's seven weeks old. It's a new new chapter for me, I guess. Right. Raising a dog.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

I had one when I was in North Dakota briefly, but I was working so much then that I ended up uh one of my co-workers, his sister, their family took him. Right. And yeah, I figured now this is my buddy's dog, is the one that had puppies. So you said it's a mix of yeah, I think the dad's purebred border collie and the mom's healer, and something else.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah, that's awesome. I have a dog too.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Should be really smart dog from what I'm told.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Not as smart as my golden doodle, though.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

I don't know. Could be cutting it pretty close.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Oh shoot. Uh what else do you have?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Oh, I don't know. Um, just all the grew up snowmobiling in the UP, you know, and that's where the the Trevor, what do you call it? The Buck Trevor. The Trevor Buck. Yeah, the Trevor Buck. Trevor Buck is from the UP.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Hey, did you know um, did you know Joe Buck?

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Yes, absolutely. Bring my skates over there and have.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Sharpened and got any funny stories, little sayings.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

He would tell us he'd go over to tech and uh he'd tell tell us that the tech players have to bring their own puck because they ain't getting his.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Oh, I love hearing those stories. That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yeah, he was a nice guy. He sharpened skates in the basement of his home there in Houghton. So he was he was a legend up there.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Yeah. Everybody knows Joe Buck. And that's how this silly thing got started. I don't know if you'd heard the story. So when Trevor bought a skate sharpening machine, he started sharpening my skates. So then I started calling him Trevor Buck.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

So that's how it got started. How about did uh did you take a lot of saunas up in the UP?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah, we grew up with a sauna, so it was a regular uh occasion, you know, every Saturday night the sauna was fired up.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Right. Jeremy, are you into saunas?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, I got I got one of the tent once.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

I use it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Right. It's probably a Maverick. Maverick tent from the sponsor of the show.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

So yeah, yeah, no, I got it.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

I got mine from North Shore. Okay, yeah. But no, I love it. Because you can that's I like how you can just pack it up and bring it anywhere you want to as well. That's right. Bring it to the river. Yep. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yeah, I have a Finlandia sound at home, and uh I take a sound every day.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Do you really? Yeah, that's awesome. I'm kind of surprised that you have an electric one.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

I'm not really into firewood.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

You're into hay though.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah. Um, I'm making hay. Yeah, we we get we burn a wood stove. My wife likes a nice wood fire in the house there.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

But uh Hey, tell me about your uh your horse project. Are you you're boarding horses?

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Yeah, we got uh a little horse barner. My youngest daughter's into horses, and so we got eight stalls and we're uh boarding uh two horses now. We had four, and now we got two, so we're look we got four open stalls. We got two of our own horses. So okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

So if people out there listening have horses and want to board them, send us a message. We'll get you in touch with Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Come on down, yeah. Where is your uh your location? We're a mile from Battleground Lake and the Lakeside Arena. It's only five bucks uh day to ride at that arena. We don't have our own interior arena, but we got a round pen and Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Now when you're boarding them, are you taking care of them?

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah or is that their responsibility? No, we we you know the normal stuff. We go full care. Full care. Full care where you feed them day and night, uh or a partial care where they do some of the work themselves and uh and we provide the hay, or they can provide the hay, you know, there's different ways that it uh it's done.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Right, right. Do you like horses?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

I uh I like animals, but I'm not really my daughter's a horse person and I'm more interested in the you know the boarding part of it.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Okay. You're into making money.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah, well, you know, the rent, you know.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

No, but I I've been around horses a little bit, but they say uh I think they're pretty smart.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

But they're like they use them for like healing or therapy or no, they're more interesting. I'm definitely learning all the time. But like I said, I'm interested in the boarding and you know what can we do at our property that you know we got acreage and what can we do to kind of generate some income, monthly income, and then and and animals and horses, they're wonderful, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

That's that's awesome. Do you have a um connection with a horseshoer? Yes, we have different ones we use, yeah. Sure. That's pretty interesting. How about you, Jeremy? You into horses?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I'll go ride my sisters and when I'm up there, I'll stop by and go for a ride occasionally in the summer. But that's awesome. Like I've I've been interested. Yeah. I'd want one more for like elk hunting, for archer hunting, but yep. So I've been I just I don't know if I have that right now to awesome. I mean, because I mean obviously I could board it at his place and take care of it there, but uh that's as far as I've gotten as and just thought about it, maybe talked about it occasionally, but not actually got one. Good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

So hey, you gotta shout out your uh your website. People want to find you.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah, no, if you're looking for a fire sprinkler system um or plumbing, RPI or www.rpiplumbingfire.com. Nice. Um or you can give us a call, 360-718-2415.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And yeah, give you a bid and get you taken care of. And if anyone has any in-depth questions of how they work, because I know there's a lot of people that are concerned, like you brought up the heads going off, only they're heat activated where they only go off where the fire's at. It's not the entire system don't go off at one time. And another one of the big ones is like people are worried the smoke detectors like with their smoke, those set them off, but they don't. So there's different things, and people are concerned that it's an overhead system and that the word is just gonna fail. And like I said, we haven't ever had one fail either. And they're all pressure tested and everything, and once it's in, it's just it's kind of a system that's just sitting there waiting to get used. It's tied in with the plumbing. If or if it is tied with the plumbing, it's it's a one shut off thing. If you shut your water off, it shuts everything off. You can't shut you can't isolate the systems. And so there's like those things they've over the years, I think they've there used to be two shutoffs, and then they switched to one to prevent that so people wouldn't just see a shut off and like, oh, I don't know, this thing ain't doing nothing. Shut it off. Well, little they know they just shut their fire sprinkler system off, now it's useless. Right. And so there's different things that get a lot of questions and definitely can't answer them if you call. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

And uh we experienced uh local here a little bit of a slowdown with new construction building. Did you guys feel it a little bit too?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Starting to. We kind of were going up and down for probably the last six months into the winter, it got a little slow, then it would pick up. And right now it's it's not I wouldn't say it's that busy. I mean these last couple weeks have been slower for the guys, but it hasn't been like terrible. Hasn't been like we haven't had a month of nothing. Right. But don't want to get ahead of myself either on that and jinx jinx us, but no, it hasn't been bad.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

And Ryan, you probably don't miss that part of it. Always looking to trying to keep a schedule and work lined up for the guys, and that's tough.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yeah, no, it's it's a big job, yeah. You know, and and a lot of the especially residential, is um you don't really know a week or two ahead if you got work, but usually you have a subdivision or projects lined up and you have work, but uh keep it coming steady, it's a big job because there's a lot of moving parts. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

And uh you guys have a warehouse here, so yours that that's a whole nother animal stocking all your materials. Yeah, it's whose role is that? Well, Jeremy's taking care of most of it there.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah, no, I we try to keep everything, all the material here. Yeah, it's smart.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

So you guys aren't having to go to the parts house. They load up here and go to the job.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Yeah, I just bring shop orders in however often we need to. And yeah, no, I think it streamlines it a lot for the guys, and they always just keep a house, house or two's worth of material in their van, so they shouldn't when they're out there, they're not calling and saying, Hey, I need this or that. They should have everything there at their fingertips at all times.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

And I see uh uh invoice here on your desk, and I know Ryan had shared a story, but I do want to shout out Keller Supply. I think you guys got a good relationship with them.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Oh yeah, Keller's been uh been with us a long time, or we've been with Keller. Yep. And uh yeah, we really like Keller, they've been good to work with. Yep, I want to give them a shout out.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

So anything else? No, I don't got anything. Well, I appreciate you guys doing this. This is great. No problem. Thank you. And this episode was edited and produced by Daisy Media. Thank you. Good night.