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Suzanne Zehrius' Blog
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Courtesy of Independent in the UK
Some myths about plumbing: you can earn $100,000 a year; the Poles are swamping the profession; women can't be plumbers.
First, don't believe the hype. The plumbing profession has seen a rise in the number of career changers attracted by the thought of being their own boss, and possibly by inaccurate press reports of the big bucks available. Plumbers still earn between $36,000 and $70,000 a year on average.
As for women plumbing contractors, look no further than Lorraine Dotchin, who until two years ago was an IT manager for a large law practice. Dotchin, 49, now runs her own plumbing business.
"I saw a point coming when I could have a career change," she explains, "and I had some experience with installing the network infrastructure at the law firm's building, which meant working with plumbers, electricians and plasterers. I always had an interest in plumbing. I'm not blazing a trail or anything. I knew there weren't many women in plumbing, but that didn't put me off because I knew I wanted to do it."
Dotchin looked into studying plumbing at her local college in Burnage, Greater Manchester, but found herself at the bottom of a waiting list. "They wanted me to wait six months and take a ladies' plumbing course for amateurs," she says. "They didn't really get why I was there. Once you're over a certain age, the chances of getting onto a college course are basically nil. Part-time courses in plumbing have three-year waiting lists in Manchester."
The Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering (CIPHE), the UK's professional and technical body for all plumbing and heating professionals, blames long waiting lists for a proliferation of under-skilled plumbers trained, for instance, by franchises offering six-week plumbing crash courses to career changers or others eager to get out to work just a little too quickly.
As a result, many properly qualified plumbers find the majority of their jobs involve rectifying the poor work of the inexperienced. The correct training, says the CIPHE, can take anything up to three years.
In Lorraine Dotchin's case, it was just over a year with New Career Skills in Southampton. "New Career Skills did all my theoretical tutoring," she explains, "and a company called Apprenticeship Training Ltd did all the practical residential training.
Both are based in Southampton, and properly accredited. They're flexible plumbing and HVAC courses; some people do it in six months, some take more than two years."
After completing the course, Dotchin didn't fancy her chances at finding an apprenticeship at her age, so she bought a utility van and started her own HVAC company, Burnage Plumbing.
A year later, she says, "it's thriving - we're booked up until after Christmas now, and I'm having to turn plumbing work away. My average working week is something like 50 hours."
In the meantime, Dotchin has been assessed by the Corgi Competent Persons Scheme, and accepted as a water industry approved plumber, improving her professional standing and proving her competence to potential clients. She remains one of a rare breed.
Her Corgi assessor knew of no other female plumbers in the North-west. Dotchin only knows one other female plumber and one female student plumber. On her college course, only five of 200 students were women.
"My fellow plumbers always say 'we don't know why there aren't more female plumbers - we bet old ladies love you...' And they do! I get a lot of work from my local plumbing suppliers, and often it's the elderly; they feel very comfortable with a female plumber."
And, perhaps surprisingly, men are comfortable too: "They're happier if it's a woman contractor who's at home with their wife!"
LearnDirect suggests that newly qualified plumbers can expect a salary of between $16,500 and $20,500. Experienced plumbers can earn from $21,000 to $30,000.
There is still a shortage of properly qualified plumbing professionals. However, some in the Southeast have been struggling to find work, according to the CIPHE. The organization blames this on new, under-qualified workers undercutting experienced plumbing businesses.
Another Female Plumbing Warrior I Found Out About!
Erin Swetland, 36
Master plumber
Minneapolis, MinnesotaAfter two and half years, my cousin-in-law who works for a large national company called Harris Companies told me they had a minority “goal” and had to fill the position. They got the contract for the new Vikings Stadium. I called and they were tripping over themselves to take me out for coffee. They signed me up on the spot. Many local businesses would love to have a change of seen with a female plumber showing up to fix their backed-up sewer line.
I had to break up with Tony. It was heart-wrenching. I wanted to vomit. I said, “Tony, I have something to tell you.” And he was like, “Are you leaving me?” I cried and said “Yes I am!” … I explained there’s so much more money in the plumber's union — I’m in Local 34 St. Paul — and all the benefits, and the retirement. He totally sulked. He was dejected, it was so sad. But he got over it. We still love each other.
It was a crazy transition because Harris does large-scale commercial buildings. They brought me on right away with the initial team of plumbers that started on the stadium. It was the middle of February, the ground is frozen. We were dragging ground thaw blankets and hoses so we could excavate and lay pipe. It was fucking plumbing Olympics.
At first there were days where I was worried I couldn’t handle it. Some of the pipe was extremely heavy. Luckily I am quite strong, but things would happen. We would be unloading a truck of 20-foot long pieces of six-inch plastic pipe, which are hard to wield. I go up to take a pipe, and my foreman is like “Don’t overexert yourself!” And I’m like, “I want to be part of the team …
Just let me take this stupid piece of pipe and if I fail, just let me fail.” In a way it was nice to hear concern, but on the other hand I don’t want to feel like men are treating me differently. Next think you know they'll be photographing me with their i Phones.
We start at 7 a.m. and go to 3:15 p.m. Before we start work we do our bend and stretch. It’s light stretching to prevent injuries but it looks like an aerobics warm-up, very ’80s: all the guys in their reflective gear rotating their hips, and touching their toes, leaning over to the side — which they call beer-mug pose.
It’s very hierarchical — what I imagine the army feels like. We are all working toward a common goal, it’s physical, and there’s a lot of danger, especially in large-scale commercial work. So, you have to trust. I was on the crew that installs the pipes that handle storm water when it rains. These pipes are the largest pipes that exist on a site generally, so we were lifting things that were like 1 ton up 300 feet in the air.
It’s terrifying for a while until you understand the physics of what you’re doing or you’ve done it enough that you’re not worried anymore. At first I was exhausted. Sometimes I would come home and cry. What made it tolerable was that the people I worked with were so great and competent. Going in, I’d heard things like, “All you’re going to do is drill holes and they don’t want women around,” but generally speaking they really wanted to teach me.
I sensed a real pride from the men who wanted to show me how they do their work — they were proud.
I have never been the kind of woman who gets approached by men, and I get to the stadium and it’s a floodgate of flirting … I was like, what is this? There was one guy from Texas, tiny, short little dude who was in love. Each day he’d be like, “Let me take you out dancing!” His head came up to my shoulder. “We’ll have so much fun, just give me a chance, give me a chance,” and finally I was like “I have a wife,” and he was like, “It doesn’t matter!” It sounded like a proposition to me. :-)
It calms down after a while because they see you working. I’m not there to flirt! I’m in a disgusting vest, I’m sweaty, my ass is sweaty, how do you find this attractive?
Apparently once, when I started, the guys were all at the bar talking about how much I sweated. One of them goes, “You know why she fucking sweats? Because she works her motherfucking ass off!”
There’s a lot of anti-gay talk among them, they tease each other. It’s that thing where straight men think gay men are disgusting but lesbians are hot. They don’t see the irony. I have to pick my battles or I would walk around angry. It’s banter and they are very open with it.
The journeyman I work with came to my wedding — it was small one … but the rest of them were pissed because they wanted to come too. I thought that was really sweet.
I started out installing toilets and now I help build hospitals and stadiums, so these days I deal with fewer actual turds than one might think. But oh gosh do I have stories from my days of domestic plumbing …
People are disgusting. I clean before I would have somebody over to do work, but many people don’t. A lot of the best plumbers I know will just turn those jobs down. Tony told me a story about how someone called him to unclog a tub. When he got there it was full of piss and shit because the toilet wasn’t working. He was just like, “This is not my job,” and left.
Don’t ever flush your tampons, or those adult baby wipes … you shouldn’t even flush toilet paper. Hair is pure protein — it doesn’t break down. Put your hair in the compost or the garbage disposal. Your soap products will congeal, especially natural products like coconut oil. Don’t use Drano, ever.
Well I hope you enjoyed learning just how determined women are about entering the plumbing industry and working alongside their sexual counterpart master plumbers for the same pay! If we can do the same job exactly as the men do, there is literally no reason whatsoever why we shouldn't receive the same wages and on the job respect. To learn more about my life in general, please check out my About.me website for more information. Thanks, Suzanne Zehrius :-)
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