Do you know how to become a plumber?
In this video I'm gonna talk to you about becoming a plumber and we're going to do it
now.
I'm Roger Wakefield, LEED AP, The Expert Plumber.
Welcome back to another great video.
If you've not been here before and you want to learn all things plumbing as a homeowner,
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Becoming a plumber is a great career decision to me.
Plumbing - it's not a job.
Plumbing is a career.
Plumbing is something that you decide you want to do and you get out there and you learn
it and you work at it and you become really really good at it.
Becoming a plumber was a decision that actually a friend of mine actually helped me make.
Those of you the know my story, I was still in high school.
I was in the beginning of my junior year and I was managing a restaurant and a buddy of
mine asked me one day; says are you gonna do this forever?
And I thought it was great!
I said "yeah I'm 16 years old.
I'm managing a restaurant.
life's good."
He said "So what happens if you get fired?
Who's gonna hire a 16 year old restaurant manager?"
And a funny thing up until that point, I had never really thought about it.
I just thought: okay look, I've got a job, this is what I'm gonna do.
He told me about his three older brothers and his father who were all three plumbers.
And he talked about how much they enjoyed it, how much they enjoyed what they did.
And I thought that was really neat.
It wasn't until that summer that I actually got into the construction trade and got into
plumbing.
And getting into plumbing really woke me up.
It let me know; wow this this is something that I enjoy.
I love building things.
I love working on things.
So that was just greatness for me.
I ended up going back to school my senior year and then got right back into plumbing.
And I'll tell you what, it is something I've always enjoyed.
So becoming a plumber, there's different ways that you can go about it.
You can actually go talk to the Union in your local area and talk to them about it and see
what they have to offer.
Unions are really good, they've got a good training program.
I think in the Union you'll learn a lot of finer ways to do things that some open shop
plumbers don't know.
When I first got in the Union I had been open shop for 17 years.
So I did things different.
I learned a different way, but once I got into the Union I wanted to learn the things
that they knew because I saw things that would make me more efficient, make me better and
make me do a better job.
So I learned to do things that way.
And the good thing is now I can draw from both those educations in the way that I did
it.
The Union apprentice training program here in the Dallas area or in Texas, you go to
school for five years, you get your license after four and they've got a very good pay
structure you start out at 50% you end up your last year, at I believe 95% for like
your last year.
And then you raise up to - or 85%, and then you raise up to full journeyman scale.
It gives you a lot to look forward to.
Apprentices in Union get raises about four times a year.
The great thing is you're starting on a pension.
You're starting on a retirement plan.
You have the opportunity to invest in your 401k.
That is a great way to go.
My faults against the Union.
I think the Union trains only for commercial and at least in my area, and service is growing.
I'm a service company and it's really hard on me because I need service plumbers and
they can't provide them.
So the things that you can do different, if you don't want to go through the Union is,
you can become an open shop plumber.
And what you do there is you go down to a plumbing company, you apply for a job, you
tell them that you want to be a helper, apprentice trainee, whatever they want to call it.
But guys whichever way you go, here's one thing that I will tell you; work very hard.
Work hard and learn hard.
Because if you do that you're always gonna have a job.
People told me that when I got into the Union, they said; you know, the problem with the
union is you'll get laid off a lot.
You'll be sent home a lot.
I've been in the Union 20 years and I've never sat at home because I got laid off.
I sat at home because I wanted to take time off or I took time off in between companies
or jobs.
But I've never been laid off in the Union and I think it's because I wanted to be very
well educated.
I wanted to learn more about plumbing.
I wanted to learn more about the products.
I wanted to learn more about the tools.
And a lot of that I took on myself.
So whether you go open shop or whether you go Union, just make sure that you're looking
at what's best for you and the way you learn.
The problem with open shop is when you go to work for open shop you are literally putting
your future in the hands of whatever plumber you work with because that plumber is gonna
teach you in training.
If he's not a good plumber, you're gonna learn bad habits.
If he is a good plumber, you have great opportunities.
I'm lucky because the plumbers that I learned from - remember I told you in the beginning
were my friends older brothers.
They were some of the first plumbers that I worked with.
And it was really good for me because they were great plumbers, they took pride in their
work and they believed in teaching me the right thing to do.
If you're thinking about getting into plumbing please leave a comment down below and let
me know are you interested in service?
Are you interested in new construction?
Are you interested in residential or are you interested in commercial?
There's all different ways to go and different options and different things to do.
I hope you're liking these videos, if you are, you know, please let me know.
Leave us a comment, things like that.
So thank you for watching.
If you want to learn more plumbing check out some of the other videos we've done on The
Expert Plumber and start now, like I said by clicking the subscribe button and ringing
the bell so you don't miss out on anything.
And I'll see you on the next video if you don't get flushed.