Why does your plumber make way more than you do?

We live here in Orange County. For years, we worked with a family-owned plumbing business, the kind of guys who show up on time, do the work right, and charge you a fair price. We trusted them.

Then we moved into a bigger house. We needed a gas line run for a stove, about 40 feet of flex line through the basement and up through the floor. Simple job. We called one of the bigger chains since they could get to it fast.

We knew the materials were about $350. We knew it was a two-man job, maybe 2½ hours of actual work. That's over $400 per hour for both the plumber and the helper. The plumber probably makes $40-50 an hour, and the helper about $20. Even with the cost of insurance, trucks, shop, and admin, where is the rest going?

We called our regular family plumbers. They did the same job for half the price. They made a profit. They're not charity workers. Which told us everything we needed to know about that first quote.

The big chain saw a nice house and what they thought was a $15,000 Viking stove. It was actually a 20-year-old Viking we'd bought used for $2,000. But they'd already made up their mind about what we could afford.

About a year later, we needed our laundry room reconfigured. We'd actually done the exact same work in our old house: same distance, same changes, same reconfiguration. That job had cost $1,600.

So we called our trusted family plumbers for a quote on the new house.

We'd expected prices to go up. Insurance, costs, a couple of years of inflation. We figured maybe $2,500. But $3,700?

Here's what had changed: between our old job and this new quote, the family plumbers had hired a bunch of guys, bought a fleet of trucks, and leased a retail storefront on a main strip they'd never had before. Now they had overhead. And the only way to cover that overhead was to charge us, their loyal customers, more than double for the exact same work.

We called them and said it straight:

His response: "No, that's just what it costs."

I said, "Well, thank you so much, but we're not going to be working together anymore."

Then I found someone else who did great work, charges a fair fee, makes a great living, and provides similar quality service. That was the moment it clicked. This is what's happening to everyone. Your plumber shouldn't make four to eight times what you earn in an hour. Skilled work deserves great pay. But not yacht money.