I’m 3 years into my apprenticeship as a union plumber. I gotta say, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but its also not great. So far I’ve only worked on new construction jobs, so it’s less unclogging toilets and more operating heavy machinery and installing pipes both underground and inside walls that haven’t been built yet. Each job is slightly different but my day typically starts around 3, leave the house at 3:30. Get to work around 5-5:30 (sometimes 6). Then we pretty much pick up whatever we left off with the day before. We load up a cart with our tools and whatever materials we need to get started from out of the gang box and then it’s off to the races. From here it could literally be anything. Some days we just have to move materials. Some days we are piping in heavy ass 8 inch cast iron piping. Some days we are doing copper pro press work. Some days we find ourselves 25 feet up in the air on a scissor lift, other days we are laying pipe 6 feet underground on a bed of gravel. There’s a lot of variety depending on what stage the building is at and also what type of building is being built. There’s even further variety still if you end up getting into service plumbing. Almost all of the days i come home covered in sweat, some days I end up covered in mud, and for service plumbers there will be days you come home covered in shit. At my current job we get there at 5:30 and take lunch at 10:30, then we leave at 1:30. It would be nicer if I didn’t live an hour and a half away. A lot of the days I end up taking a nap on the way home and I make it home by 4. Usually the days go pretty quickly doing that kind of work but they also leave you pretty drained. I’m currently taking elective CAD classes at school so that I can hopefully get out of the field and into the office but that’s going to depend on job availability. Overall, there are worse ways to make a living. But waking up at 3 in the morning sucks and I will never get used to that. It never would have been my first choice, but after hitting 30 and having a kid without having a career, its been a decent last resort option.
I’m 3 years into my apprenticeship as a union plumber. I gotta say, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but its also not great. So far I’ve only worked on new construction jobs, so it’s less unclogging toilets and more operating heavy machinery and installing pipes both underground and inside walls that haven’t been built yet. Each job is slightly different but my day typically starts around 3, leave the house at 3:30. Get to work around 5-5:30 (sometimes 6). Then we pretty much pick up whatever we left off with the day before. We load up a cart with our tools and whatever materials we need to get started from out of the gang box and then it’s off to the races. From here it could literally be anything. Some days we just have to move materials. Some days we are piping in heavy ass 8 inch cast iron piping. Some days we are doing copper pro press work. Some days we find ourselves 25 feet up in the air on a scissor lift, other days we are laying pipe 6 feet underground on a bed of gravel. There’s a lot of variety depending on what stage the building is at and also what type of building is being built. There’s even further variety still if you end up getting into service plumbing. Almost all of the days i come home covered in sweat, some days I end up covered in mud, and for service plumbers there will be days you come home covered in shit. At my current job we get there at 5:30 and take lunch at 10:30, then we leave at 1:30. It would be nicer if I didn’t live an hour and a half away. A lot of the days I end up taking a nap on the way home and I make it home by 4. Usually the days go pretty quickly doing that kind of work but they also leave you pretty drained. I’m currently taking elective CAD classes at school so that I can hopefully get out of the field and into the office but that’s going to depend on job availability. Overall, there are worse ways to make a living. But waking up at 3 in the morning sucks and I will never get used to that. It never would have been my first choice, but after hitting 30 and having a kid without having a career, its been a decent last resort option.