The wonderful thing about being a plumber is that it can be a stay-at-home mum friendly job if you let it. But it can only be this way with clever planning.
I haven’t worked this week during the day, but I had to go into the city with my Dad to disconnect a water meter and redirect it into a plumbing duct in a commercia building. The building manager wanted the work to be done out of hours. We were given the approval to do it Monday night from 5pm.
The best part was I could spend the day with my daughter, then drop her to my mum to look after (hubby doesn’t finish work until 5pm and I had to be in the city starting work by 5pm) and I was finished in a couple of hours. Because the work was done out of hours my rate increased per hour which meant I made more money.
When servicing domestic customers some plumbers do charge a dearer rate simply because Saturday is their day off and is not part of the 5 day working week. A call out fee is also always dearer out of hours because it’s out of a plumbers way to come out to you. I know that we can complain about the dearer rate but remember that plumbers have families too and a life outside of their job.
A number of our jobs need to be done on a Saturday but we haven’t charged out of hours rates because we are happy to do the work and work has been quiet.
But don’t be surprised when things do pick up and you are wanting a plumber to come out of hours that he or she will charge an out of hours rate.
Most tradespeople prefer not to work out of hours or on weekends because some suppliers aren’t open and so they are unable to get gear should they need it to fix a job. Some prefer to work out of hours because of the better pay and easier access due to less traffic on the road and on-site parking.
For me, working out of hours was an advantage but I don’t want to do it too often because as most mums know from 5pm onwards is the dinner, bath and bedtime rush hour with kids. Thankfully my daughter doesn’t mind a change in routine. And for this week, I didn’t mind the change either.
