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Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

nikolaihlebowitsh.substack.com

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Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#31

Post by shalmanese »

Disintermediation. The degree which marketplace platforms can exert pressure against disintermediation determines their right to exist.

Certain markets, it's absolutely trivial for marketplace participants to agree to an off-market transaction, cutting the marketplace out of any transaction fees. That's what killed all the Uber for Maids businesses of the early 10s.

Uber for Uber, on the other hand, is an absolutely amazing platform for preventing disintermediation. Occasionally, you'll get a driver handing you their personal business card and saying call me directly if you want a ride to the airport but overwhelmingly, people are unable to get around the platform, regardless of how high the middleman cut is.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#32

Post by coffeecoders »

A lot of these "Uber for X" conversations miss a deeper point. The software only works as a force multiplier when the underlying labor is modular and fungible. Ridesharing works because every trip is basically the same API call i.e. person A to location B.

Plumbing or HVAC isn’t like that. Every house is a legacy system with zero documentation and different failure modes. Half the job is reverse engineering decades of homeowner hacks, and mystery piping. The other half is risk management.

If Uber had to deal with "each car is different, some are from 1978, half the wiring was DIY, and if you route one trip wrong the customer’s house floods," it would look very different.

The heterogeneity of the physical world is the limiting factor. Basically, devops for building (instrumentation, diagnostics and standardization).

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#33

Post by nancyminusone »

jleyank wrote: post #6

People on a forum run by VC types or wannabes complaining about the capitalistic system. They have the money, get to it. Figure out how to make plumbing robots or ai systems that turn software geeks into wrench jockeys. Why does $Company charge so much? Cuz they can.

I'm reasonably convinced we'll have advanced AGI or fusion power or something before the day comes that a robot can autonomously swap out a home water heater.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#34

Post by mothballed »

bickfordb wrote: post #29

It's typical for those trades to have extensive licensing requirements. In my state (OR) plumber and HVAC licenses require four years of apprenticeship. Additionally the HVAC trade has gatekeeping around the EPA refrigerant licensing and supply distributors/manufacturers who will only sell to contractors.

I got my EPA 608 license from like two days of cramming and an online proctored test. Skillcat, was like $0 or $50 if you want the card. Can order unlimited refrigerants straight to my doorstep.

No place around me to install mini-splits for cheap so I just got the EPA 'licensing' and did it myself. As long as you don't offer the service commercially, in most states, I think that's all they need.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#35

Post by gtowey »

sema4hacker wrote: post #5

Yes, it would be nice if everything was easy, fair, and equitable. But: Almost anyone can become an Uber driver without much effort. Not true for plumbers and HVAC people. There are so many drivers available they're waiting for your call. Any decent plumbing/HVAC company has a backlog. All Uber drivers are centralized under one pricing system. Plumbers/HVACs control their own pricing logic. I've never gotten contract…

I agree. The comments in this thread don't seem to understand how skill trade work operates at all.

One truism is that any halfway decent tradesman always has about 10x the amount of work waiting for them as they can accomplish. People who can do the job well are always in demand.

Uber for plumbers would be a disaster because the only plumbers who have the free time for waiting around for on-call work are the ones who are terrible at their job.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#36

Post by MichaelZuo »

brudgers wrote: post #9

Plumbing, HVAC and other skilled trades operate almost entirely B2B, not B2C. The very premise of this article is why that is the case...people who don't understand what is required, what is good, and how construction operates shopping solely on price with unreasonable expectations. That $22k quote? That's how a company can pay for capacity during peak demand...i.e. paying skilled workers enough to make extra long ho…

So then where are the premium HVAC companies for the residential market charging a higher price but offering credible guarantees?

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#37

Post by mannykannot »

brudgers wrote: post #9

Plumbing, HVAC and other skilled trades operate almost entirely B2B, not B2C. The very premise of this article is why that is the case...people who don't understand what is required, what is good, and how construction operates shopping solely on price with unreasonable expectations. That $22k quote? That's how a company can pay for capacity during peak demand...i.e. paying skilled workers enough to make extra long ho…

Well said, and I suspect that the author's harrowing experience (in the first paragraph) was a preview of what surge pricing would look like in this market, post-Uberization.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#38

Post by efields »

ekropotin wrote: post #20
naveen99 wrote: post #11

It’s called home warranty companies.

Which are 100% scam

That depends. We got one paid for by the seller of our house and in the first year it paid for an HVAC repair and plumber. I renewed it once for $600/year and wound up getting our refrigerator replaced in-kind, probably a $1500-2000 machine.

I decided my luck had run out and so I _did not_ renew it again, and we haven't had any other issues that _would have been covered_ since then, so I think I played my cards right.

I don't think they are a scam, but they are an insurance product, and insurance products have a lot of detail that need to be understood before you can decide whether it meets your needs or not. It's not a panacea to home-ownership woes.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#39

Post by gtowey »

srmatto wrote: post #12

I can't comment on this idea but I will say that I would have expected press fittings to have brought down the cost of plumbing because they don't require soldering up to certain diameter. But they don't seem to have had any impact on the cost of plumbing despite not requiring as much skill. https://www.ferguson.com/content/ideas-and-learning-center/t...

The skill of a plumber isn't in knowing how to solder. I've run copper pipe and soldered fittings on my own plenty of times, it's not hard. The skill is in either knowing the building codes inside and out when dealing with new work, or for remodel work it's knowing all the tricks of how to alter existing plumbing quickly, cleanly and efficiently. Both those skills are only developed with experience.

Re: Why is there no Uber for plumbing/HVAC? (and why there ought to be)

#40

Post by gruez »

brudgers wrote: post #9

Plumbing, HVAC and other skilled trades operate almost entirely B2B, not B2C. The very premise of this article is why that is the case...people who don't understand what is required, what is good, and how construction operates shopping solely on price with unreasonable expectations. That $22k quote? That's how a company can pay for capacity during peak demand...i.e. paying skilled workers enough to make extra long ho…

>In the world where people have reasonable options, relationships matter and relationships are non-fungible.

What type of homeowner hires their plumber/HVAC guy based on "relationships"? They might only need a visit only once in a few years, so the idea of "relationships" is laughable.

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