Plumbing Career
Have You Considered A Plumbing Career?
In years past, a plumbing career didn't seem like the most promising career to be engaged in. In small towns, there would be the town plumber, who fixed pipes, and didn't always appear to know too much beyond, sinks, toilets, and water heaters, probably because he was too busy fixing sink, toilets, and water heaters. College seemed a much better choice. After all, one could do much better financially being an engineer or a CPA, that being a plumber. As an engineer or CPA, one could wear a suit and tie and not have to crawl under houses to find a leak, which of course meant finding mud at the same time.
After graduating from college, and buying a house, the time eventually came when it was necessary to call in a plumber. Only then did we begin to appreciate (after getting the bill) that plumbers made good money, and that to be successful in a plumbing career, one had to know a great number of things. A plumber in fact, was seen to be much more than the small-town handyman. When you actually had your first home built, and began to understand what constituted good plumbing design, and good workmanship, the thought of a plumbing career began to take on a whole new look.
Computers Enter The Scene - Plumbers today get to where they are more or less by the traditional approach, which is by serving an apprenticeship. One still doesn't need a university degree, although for some plumbing needs, a degree in mechanical engineering wouldn't hurt. As a minimum, a plumber should get some formal mechanical drafting training and shop experience, and today, especially for larger jobs in commercial buildings, the ability to use computing tools, including computer aided design applications, can make the difference from getting a contract and not getting one.
Plumbers also need to acquaint themselves with building codes and the like, and talent in dealing with people who have just had an expensive carpet flooded doesn't hurt either.
It's entirely possible, that feelings towards the small town plumber of our youth were not really justified, and the guy with the monkey wrench was a lot smarter and more talented than we gave him credit for. He didn't always need a blueprint to go about his job, unless it was putting in the plumbing for a new house. Still, he probably relied mainly on experience, which for most jobs was quite sufficient. Like the TV repairman in the days when we actually had to have our TVs repaired, we really didn't appreciate the talent repair men and plumbers brought to the table, until we had need of them.
A Shortage Of Qualified Plumbers - There are many excellent plumbers, as well as a few plumbers you probably wouldn't have make a house call a second time. But watching a good plumber at work definitely can leave one impressed. A plumbing career however can extend well beyond house calls, or doing the plumbing work on new residences. It has become a lucrative and challenging field. Plumbers still go through an apprenticeship, and most join the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing, Pipe Fitting, Sprinkler Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada (gasp!), the UA for short. As is the case in many other vocations, one can usually command a higher salary in a plumbing career if one is a member of the Union. The federal government estimates there will be a shortage of plumbers well into the coming decade, especially in the area of commercial construction, and the need for piping in ships, factories, and scientific facilities, not to mention skyscrapers. A shortage translates into the demand for plumbers exceeding the supply of them, which is only good news if you have your sights set on a plumbing career.