We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748742 and marked it off-topic. That's not precise, since it's not exactly off-topic, but the subthread went off into arguments about $400k and left the station.

I always read these ridiculously high salaries and laugh. Your average HVAC worker is not making $400k. I do know people in construction/HVAC/plumbers/electricians and it's the bosses making that money, not the grunt workers. The people on the front lines still make good money, for some easily approaching $100k/year, so there's not really a need for embellishment. That isn't to say that it's unattainable, but it's akin to saying that software developers make $400k/year when it's usually 10-20+ year tenured engineering managers at a few specific companies actually making that much.

$400k is what senior executives of major multinational companies get paid. It's also what top surgeons get paid.

I highly doubt that blue collar workers get anywhere near that much. If they did, everyone would try to work in that industry because the barrier to entry is comparatively very low.

Senior executives get paid much more than that in stock (which is how these top-paid software people get most of their money too), also $400k is just a slightly above average surgeon, not a top surgeon.

If you read my comment, I'm not really talking about blue collar workers, but more people who used to be bluecollar workers but eventually became small business owners of companies employ blue collar labor. My cousins who used to be electricians can easily make $250k/year by employing a team of <10 electricians to do the manual work. $400k/year doesn't seem out of reach at all, and they might get that just by moving business to a higher CoL area than the suburban South

So you're talking about businessmen, not workers. Businessmen are doing well across the board. It doesn't much matter what they did before they were businessmen.

"If they did, everyone would try to work in that industry because the barrier to entry is comparatively very low."

That's an old joke:

Surgeon to plumber: "You are charging higher prices than I get for performing surgery!"

Plumber: "Yeah, I make more money now than when I was a surgeon, too."

Well, in NYC, senior execs at major multinational companies and top surgeons aren't the only ones making $400K.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/04/why-shoul...

Yes, these are blue collar workers.

They absolutely do, but not at entry level. They're the ones who have been doing it for ages, break off to start their own business doing it, and hire people to work for them, and the cycle begins anew. Nobody's doing it because the last 20 years kids have been told that college is the One True Path to being successful and that the trades are for people who can't hack it there. It's hard work and long hours before you really start to get crazy high earnings, but you get there.

To affirm: who knows more, earns more is probably the most harmful lie you can say to your children. Supply and demand!

   It's also what top surgeons get paid.

Your point is valid, but that is nowhere near the top of surgical salaries - closer to the average.

Top surgeons? My girlfriend’s cousin is a new doctor in Texas and makes a decent amount >$400k as a brand new doctor at a hospital.

“”” The salary figures fall short of numbers reported by other survey groups: a Medical Group Management Association report using 2010 data, found that the average compensation for radiologists was $471,253 and for pediatricians it was $192,148, Kaiser Health News reports. “””

http://time.com/4408807/surgeon-salary-how-much-doctors-make...

No wonder you spend enormous amounts of money on health care in the states. In Norway most doctors makes just above $100,000. I guess this is more or less comparable to the rest of Europe.

Doctor pay has almost nothing to do with the absurd medical costs. With 1.1m doctors in the US, and median pay at 180k, that's $200B. US healthcare spending is 3.2 trillion. Beyond that, I think they deserve that much when factoring in the cost of education, liability of the job, and decrease in years of employment.

Here's some math:

- median age of retirement: 63.

- median UPS salary over lifetime: $70k.

- UPS driver lifetime earnings = 70k * (63-18) = $3.15m

- Median doctor salary: They usually earn around 150k total during their residency, and the median is around 180k beyond that (typically age 30+)

- MD lifetime earnings = 150k + 180k*33 = 6.09m.

- MD education debt is typically around 500k, adjusting earnings to 5.59m. Accounting for hours worked, MD equivalent lifetime earnings are 3.72m.

I mean no disrespect to the work ethic of any blue collar job, but do you really believe the guy who cured you of cancer isn't worth the extra 600k over their lifetime compared to the guy who dropped off your replacement phone charger?

Some other data which tells a different story; I wonder how it all reconciles:

In the United States, the richest 1 percent have seen their share of national income roughly double since 1980, to 20 percent in 2014 from 11 percent. ...

No other nation in the 35-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is as unequal among those with comparable tax data, and none have experienced such a sharp rise in inequality.

...

Almost all of the growth in top American earners has come from just three economic sectors: professional services, finance and insurance, and health care, groups that tend to benefit from regulatory barriers that shelter them from competition.

The groups that have contributed the most people to the 1 percent since 1980 are: physicians ...

The United States also stands out in terms of how much money its elite professionals earn relative to the median worker. Workers at the 90th percentile of the income distribution for professionals make 3.5 times the earnings of the typical (median) worker in all occupations in the United States. Only Mexico and Israel, which have very high inequality, compensate professionals so disproportionately.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/upshot/income-inequality-...

Income is not the same as wealth, and income is irrelevant if it doesn't turn into wealth.

My father is a doctor and he finished paying off his education at 48. I make half what he made and finished paying mine off at 28. I'm drastically more wealthy now, and will be wealthier when I retire. This seems strange given the significant difference in income.

1980 is a very peculiar data point to mention. That year is pretty much exactly when minimum wage and tuition suddenly diverged. Between 1965 and 1980, A full time summer job at minimum wage could consistently pay for ~45% of your tuition. In the next 15 years, it dropped to around 20-25%. Running the numbers for 2017-2018, in-state tuition is 20%, out of state is 11%, and private is 8.6%.

The groups that have contributed the most people to the 1 percent since 1980 are: physicians ...

With all that in mind, this statement doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If education prices have skyrocketed, shouldn't the career that spends the most in education (both time and cost) be compensated accordingly?

Point being, income is only half of the equation to wealth. That article doesn't bother mentioning debt at all.

Relevant assumptions/data:

Summer job: 14 weeks @ 40hrs per week

Tuition costs 2017: https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tabl...

Older tuition costs: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

Minimum wage: https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

> isn't worth the extra 600k

Do you really think you should pay twice as much in the US compared to other countries with equal quality?

If what you're quoting is what you are actually responding to, you've missed the point. That quote is a comparison between a UPS driver and a Doctor, not a Doctor in the US and one in Norway. If you're trying to compare countries, you're not paying twice as much once you account for what goes into achieving that income.

Maybe I didn't get my point across, but what I was getting at: salaries really have to do with the extreme healthcare costs in the US.

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/10/25/doctors-sal...

(Also on HN today)

I've commented on that one as well. Feel free to read those.

Strict control over the number of training positions and medical school spots appears to keep salaries high.

Huzzah!!! Nailed it.

@Thlom well they have these exorbitant medical school loans to pay off, you see...

>400k is what senior executives of major multinational companies get paid. It's also what top surgeons get paid.

400k is seen quite often e.g. here: http://www.gaswork.com/search/Anesthesiologist/Job/All

So it would seem one just needs to choose the right niche, and doesn't even need to be the top.

>If they did, everyone would try to work in that industry because the barrier to entry is comparatively very low.

To get in, yes there is no barrier to entry, just find a trade school or union to accept you for training.

However, the program and training is no joke. You have to have the aptitude and dexterity to do the job and complete the training.

Tower crane operators in NYC can apparently make up to $500k including benefits.

The barrier to entry is not low though, it's incredibly hard to become a crane operator due to the unions.

When I search for salary data for tower crane operators online, it says the salary is around $30k per year.

It sounds like you have to network hard and get very lucky to get that 500k per year salary and it probably doesn't last forever.

I've heard several stories from older people who said that they were earning ridiculous amounts at some point in their lives but it only lasted a couple of years and then their salaries dropped back to average ranges once their contract ran out and started working for normal companies again.

Salaries don't necessarily keep going up based on experience.

"tenured engineering managers"?

http://thestartupconference.com/2017/03/25/the-350k-google-s...

That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap. And those are figures for experienced workers to boot, and "Staff Engineer" is typically a managerial role IMO, if not directly by delegation/HR-type stuff, then in a technical sense.

The total comp is in practice also generally a bit lower because most of those companies backload the vesting

“Staff Engineer” is about halfway up the technical career ladder in many places, with a few possible (but increasingly rare) levels above, and a few levels below. Someone promoted to staff engineer likely has at least 5 years of work experience (probably more) and is self-motivated, good at their job, gets along well with their coworkers, and has some technical vision.

Many of these people might have some quasi-managerial duties (interacting with other parts of the organization, helping with recruiting, ...), get roped into more meetings than they would like, or make high-level technical decisions and delegate work to a handful of more junior engineers, but most of them are sitting at their desks writing code a significant part of the day (or perhaps rewriting the schlocky code that the junior engineers just handed in).

I've worked for 2 well known software companies and what you are describing is a Senior Engineer in both (5-10 years experience).

The place I am now starts fresh grads as Engineer I, then Engineer II, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Architect and then Staff Engineer. Each promotion takes about 4-5 years so you aren't reaching Staff until about 20 years. A Staff Engineer is basically fully autonomous and is an IC that reports directly to the executives. They work on what they want and with who they want.

I understand this is different at Google and I guess Staff is the equivalent to a Google Fellow.

My experience aligns with yours

Yeah, the version the earlier poster was talking about in his link is somewhere between your levels of Senior and Principal.

I think it depends on the company. I was extrapolating from my own experience but I realize it may not be the same elsewhere. In my experience Staff Engineers were almost always at least 10 years-experienced. I might be wrong about those companies I mentioned, though, because I've never worked at any of them

Also keep in mind I said "usually" in my original comment. Blue collar labor and software engineering are not directly analogous because yes, there are software developers at the high end that are making a lot of money compared to some of the best blue collar workers. But it's still only a small percentage of them making that much, and I wouldn't mention those figures to someone looking to go into software for that reason

"That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap."

That's why you said:

"when it's usually 10-20+ year tenured engineering managers at a few specific companies"

right?

Yeah I was speaking in broad terms across the industry, not accounting for edge cases

It’s not all that unusual for the grunt workers to put in their time and become the boss. Out where I live, there are lots of really big houses near the water with vans and dirty pickup trucks out front.

I think there’s a lot more software developers at the big tech companies making $400k or more in total comp than you think.

I'll never see 400K, not even if I do tons of overtime through my own S-Corp. If you can do that, I'd like to know how. 200K is hard enough and not easy to maintain.

This reminds me of the observation[1] that most applicants for programming positions can't implement FizzBuzz. This has led some to conclude that the majority of programmers would be stumped by the task, but it is more likely that such programmers are overrepresented in the applicant pool.

1. http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest

This is exactly the issue. It’s not that all $manufacturing_demographic have issues showing up up, working, or are doing drugs, it’s that the pool has been almost picked clean of those who don’t.

It doesn't help that most employers are not willing to do what it takes to attract qualified employees.

So we have filtered 0.5% "elite" passing FizzBuzz, what shall we do now? Those need CV crafted in LaTeX, maintain public repositories, have fluency in latest frameworks and APIs, demand moderate salary... wait... nobody's left. SHORTAGE! Teach EVERYONE programming!

So true. So frustrating.

I'm not a top-shelf engineer, but I'm perfectly capable of working on a team and producing good work. Finding jobs is an extremely difficult process.

I can't even get companies to send me FizzBuzz or any coding test when applying to remote jobs. I'm not sure they even see my application with the flood of applicants they get.

I don't think roofers are good example, not sure where you live, but last summer I got roofers scheduled in a week (Boston area). By locally known construction company, I got estimate and contract by American owner/sales man - he probably does well, but the actual work was done by Brazilian crew, which I'm guessing was mostly illegal immigrants likely paid less than minimum wage. From my observations with neighbors and friends, all roof work done in the area is by Brazilian crews (I don't know why Brazilian specifically, but that how it is). Good luck competing wit them. Another anecdote example is small framing company owner (originally from Russia), mostly hires illegal Russian immigrants who work for near minimum wage. The owner may do well, but not the rest of the crew.

My step dad was a roofer when I was growing up. He was the one that did the estimates and found the business and he had a crew of immigrants that did most of the work for him. They earned far above minimum wage. They made $15/hr, under the table, in the early 90s when minimum wage was under $5/hr. Even the grunt roofing work is semi-skilled and paying more allowed him to keep the same crew together over multiple years so he didn't have to constantly retrain. Even his supervisor role was backbreaking work that left him exhausted after 12-hour days. His crew would have found other minimum wage grunt work to do if the money wasn't good. Plus, the margins on jobs were so high that it didn't make sense to be chintzy (he'd net around $4k on a week-long job after the cost of labor and materials). But it was seasonal work so he'd only get 10-12 jobs in per year and spent the rest of the year being an artist.

I can't say how many crews are run like his was, but I also don't think it's fair to assume that all those guys are making next to nothing. The roofing season is so short and the money good enough that I'd bet that having someone you trust to move fast while maintaining quality would be worth a significant amount over minimum wage. Having worked with him on my summer breaks in high school, it took me a full season to get to the point where I was even close to keeping up with his regulars. I'd also bet the money being pretty good, not bad, is why you see groups of the same ethnicity working together since they probably recruit and train each other whenever there's a vacancy.

From my anecdotal experience, a lot of recent immigrants (legal or illegal doesn't matter) don't know English and it takes them time (some times many years) before the can work in English speaking environment. Naturally such groups of same ethnicity are formed, and typically are the only work option for new immigrants (who don't speak English). This also means they are paid less, as have limited job options.

I'm not sure if I understood correctly, that your dad's crew was mostly immigrants, why do you think it was like that? If pay was good and semi-skilled (easy to train), why mostly immigrants?

He probably could have found Americans to do the work, but I think he preferred immigrants because they were more willing to get paid under the table. He wasn't trying to dodge taxes, he just hated complexity and filling out forms. He was an artist who learned to see roofs as art and fixed them as a concession to needing money that he never could earn from his painting and photography. I think he was paying enough to find Americans, but not enough to find Americans who would stay with him for years, especially since it was seasonal work and they'd need other work during the rest of the year. Continuity and quality were also really important to him and he wanted people he could trust.

> the actual work was done by Brazilian crew, which I'm guessing was mostly illegal immigrants likely paid less than minimum wage

There are millions of immigrants in the U.S. who are legal; why would you think these people are not? I guess my point is, it's not a good assumption and has bad consequences: People having their legality questioned based on no evidence.

legality questioned? come on, of course it's not good to assume anything about people, lots of things happen in life. That doesn't mean I had to go ask each of them to show me their documents, so I can make a guess on internet forum.

> I can make a guess on internet forum

On one hand, I understand that people don't want to be challenged or to write dissertations for casual conversation. On the other, we know that misinformation spreading through 'internet forums' in the form of 'guesses' is a problem, that HN isn't a typical internet forum, and that 'guesses' are often challenged here.

Where can one go to learn these "blue collar" skills? As a recent home owner I'm learning first hand how valuable these skills are by way of my wallet. Seems like most people I meet who do these kinds of jobs were "born into it", and learned by helping a family member who was already in the industry. Are there IIT type schools which teach these kinds of things on a part time basis?

For a great many, youtube is surprisingly awesome. My normal approach to home DIY now is to watch as many youtube videos of the process I want to try as possible, then make a determination if it is something I still want professional help with or can try to do myself.

YouTube is awesome for DIY, I moved to older house two years ago and with youtube helps I've added crown moldings, repainted all rooms, replaced baseboard, built patio, deck - lots of fun, I think without youtube I wouldn't done any of it, zero experience before. Funny, my dad did a lot of renovations, and a lot of times I'd get more details/better tips on youtube than asking him :) But youtube is great for common DIY projects - how to add crown molding - tens of really good detailed videos. But if project is less commonly done by DIY folks, not that much info - I've needed to replace exterior window trim - not that much, people usually hire for that.

DIY subreddit is also a good place to search and ask questions.

Would you say, for example, your painting is good as a professionals (e.g., paint lines are straight with respect to adjacent walls / ceiling, etc)? As someone who anticipates being a homeowner in a few years, I wonder if it's possible the first time you learn how to do something (without having the best technique for the skill) to get the best outcome.

I wouldn't want my home improvement projects to look half-assed just because I wasn't experienced or knew the "best practices" for the given home improvement task.

Well it all depends, how good professional is, how much time you spend and how much you care about details. From my experience comparing to the jobs my nieghbord/friend had done by contractors - I can do better :) Though they didn't hire expensive contractors, I'm sure there professional who can do much better. But as mentioned in other comments, for average contractor time matters and they don't pay attention as much as you can. So if you care about details a lot and can't/don't want to hire expensive contractors, better do yourself.

Painting is especially easy, if you screw up some spot, you can always return and repaint (worst case you'll have to do that couple times :)) Painting equipment is (relatively) cheep, you can cover floors with plastic covers/blue tape and don't worry about screwing floors/doors while you learn :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNagIA8sKY0 watch these videos and you'd be ready to start. Cutting wall/ceiling line by hand is not that hard (the video has a trick), there're also "helper tools" for cutting lines in home depot/lowes. One trick is that if you go with light color on walls, perfect line with white ceiling doesn't even matter, you won't notice small deviations anyway.

If have doubts in your own skills (I did), try starting with closets and bedrooms. Only then move to living rooms/kitchens. If you screw up closet or your bedroom - it's not that of big deal. Though if watch above video series, it's really hard to screw up too much.

I think you'll find that it varies by the job and your own personal level of "halfassed".

I can do most home maintenance stuff - electrical, most plumbing, fixtures, appliance repair, etc. I pay someone to do drywall work or painting - because I'm pretty picky and I can always see where my work falls short.

I think you'll find for finishing work practice makes perfect and is where professionals shine. You can certainly do professional quality work, but expect a learning curve and to be re-doing sections of projects that don't turn out too well. I know several homeowners who have re-done bathrooms themselves, and only one would I say turned out professional looking in quality. That guy is simply a perfectionist who spent an inordinate amount of time on the project.

Yeah, I'd imagine as a homeowner, I'd want projects (at least those where the outcome matters visually), to have that professionalism.

I kind of would want to be a bit further up the learning curve, but if you only have 1 or 2 bedrooms, you don't have much by way to learn, so it seems like having a professional is probably worth the premium vs. your own labor (if you're like me and highly value the aesthetic end result).

My painting (imho) is better than most professionals. I am not time or quality constrained, as I'm not running a business.

I can buy good paint, brushes, and tape. I can take my time, I can let paint dry over multiple days, do touchups, keep properly mixed cans (mixing two cans of the same color into one).

There are two aspects to being a "professional" tradesman.

1) Do it _better_ than others

2) Do it profitably

#1 is something you as an individual can overcome with practice, #2 is generally a hard constraint which sometimes compromises the goals of #1.

There is a inverse relationship on youtube DIY remodel videos. The better the video quality, the worse the advice and vice versa. Many of these 'experts' are more interested in video production (and possibly revenue from it) than they are knowing about actual building codes and practices.

Agreed, I renovated basically my entire condo using this process, hiring out the jobs that looked unreasonable to try and do myself. I was able to do quite a bit though, youtube is awesome for this.

Agreed. I just tore down an old chimney, ripped out the wall, replaced the floor, the wall, put in a big window, fixed the section of the roof, and put in a new wood stove. Just youtube and google search to figure most of it out. I did have to "phone a friend" a few cases, but that could have been done on a forum with greater latency. I figure that I saved a lot of money doing this myself.

Community college. It's cost effective and a great way to get your feet wet. I took a welding class at my local, and couldn't believe how cheap it was.

Ditto makerspaces, if your area has them.

My suggestion is two fold. First, personal experimentation on an inexpensive basis. You can buy a lot of basic, cheap materials and tools, and practice specific types of work. You can teach yourself very easily with weekly practice, how to do any type of household work, from drywall to plumbing. Most of it is not difficult, it requires practice and mental effort over time. You get better and better at it. The point is to practice on things you can destroy at low cost, rather than feeling intimidated working on your actual property and fearing causing a big bill via error.

The second is, find people you know that do blue collar work, whatever it happens to be (whatever you're wanting to learn). For example, I know a few guys that work as unlicensed handymen, most of them are quite skilled at what they do, they just frequently work under the table. Pay them for their time to speed up your learning process on specific tasks.

Yeah, it's like most things. "Experience is the name we give to our mistakes."

I tend to focus on the types of tasks that I'll have occasion to do many times, such as painting and/or things that may just not look as good as if I hired someone to do them but won't cause any real problems if they're not quite right. I agree that it's mostly just putting the time and effort in--and, of course, there are only so many different things most of us can put our own effort into.

Online! We are building Tradeskills.io to make it easier for people to explore and learn trade skills online. I would love to hear more about the types of things you are now interested in learning since purchasing a home! I can be reached at [email protected]

I had two bad experiences hiring contractors. I eventually decided that I could make my own mistakes, cheaper, and actually learn something in the process.

First step is to read What Your Contractor Won't Tell You [WYCWTY] https://www.amazon.com/What-Your-Contractor-Cant-Tell/dp/097... I wish I had this book before I started. Practical advice from a person who has remodeled 100s of houses. With checklists of things I didn't even know to ask about. I now buy this book for everyone I know thinking of having some work done.

By analogy, WYCWTY is like the Rapid Development and Code Complete type books. It covers that middle gray area between code construction and project & product management. Practical methodology, if you will.

Next, buy every book, watch every video. The best construction books (for me) come from Journal of Light Construction. Their field guides are spendy, so I snagged them thru camelcamelcamel. Also buy some fairly recent code books. Just keep reading, watching, experimenting until understanding.

Next, find local tradesmen who are willing to do side work. There are a lot of very qualified people who are happy to do spot work for cash. For the people I hire, I'm their gopher, cleaner, extra pair of hands. They're taking time away from their families, so I try to make it as painless as possible for them to help me.

Yes, the videos are great. But I've learned more from watching and helping. Two recent examples. #1 I had my guy rehang a new door. OMG. When I tried it myself, I had done everything wrong. This pro rehung the door faster and more true than I would have ever figured out on my own. I have 3 more doors to hang and now I know I'll get it right. #2 I also had a pro come in and hang then mud drywall. OMG. I had done everything wrong. This guy had some many tricks of the trade. Despite reading the books and watching the videos, I had never seen drywall hung before. I totally made a hash of it.

Lastly, buy all the tools, same ones contractors use. For example, I had lot of framing to do, so I bought a Hitachi nailer, the recommended compressor, etc. Now when a tradesmen shows up, I have the proper tools (makes everything easier). Plus, when I finish my remodel, I know I can get most of my money back. Overall, cheaper than renting or buying non-pro gear.

You'll waste a lot of time and money doing things yourself. But if you've got the stomach for it, I think you'll come out ahead. Teach a man to fish and all that.

> Plus, when I finish my remodel, I know I can get most of my money back

Just to make sure I understand you correctly, you mean by selling the equipment you bought, right?

Yup.

Community colleges and stores like Lowe's or Home Depot often have classes like this, but honestly, with the web, it's easier and easier to teach yourself these days. I wouldn't bother paying for instruction unless I was aiming to become a professional.

You can get them by watching youtube videos. I re-roofed my own house (I simply couldn't afford to hire a crew). After the job was done I compared to other houses in my neighborhood - my roof had straighter lines and looked better than any roof I could find.

Never do anything by yourself which requires a permit (HVAC, Plumbing/Gas, Electrical), unless w.r.t. electrical it's low voltage boxes covered by standard switchplates with the breaker box off.

Never do anything structural/load-bearing. Avoid touching window-headers/columns, door-headers/columns, that random beam in the middle of your living room, that random pillar that you wish you know what was for, and that really inconvenient wall between your kitchen and your dining room (those are likely "important" points).

Other than that, paint... sheetrock... siding... sheds... trim... cosmetics... run wires... drill (some) holes... attach things to things... it's your house!

I learned the most by watching Income Property and Holmes on Homes.

http://www.diynetwork.com/shows/income-property

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_on_Homes

Pretty sick of this, really. I know it's meant to stop idiots from doing work that could endanger them and others, but I've serviced my own boilers, installed my own sockets for years and even laid out the electrical for a whole house.

Now some dickwad comes and tells me "man, that is illegal". k

No one ever prevents you from doing your own work, it has never been illegal. You just need to get the permits and pass inspections (just like all licensed electricians / plumbers / etc do).

> I know it's meant to stop idiots from doing work that could endanger them and others

Yes, and it's a lot bigger problem than you might think. You know what you are doing, but 99% of people don't, and they will happily murder the next owner / next occupant through their own malpractice, without even thinking once about it. I've seen professional home builders screw this up and fail inspections, multiple times. It's a real and common risk.

Language, please. Also consider the context: "I just bought a home, I don't know what I'm doing!"

That is _not_ the person I want working on a gas line (which is "plubming") on a house I'm going to buy in the future.

I'm sure you're a special little snowflake that's good at everything, but if you don't feel comfortable getting a permit for permit / license-required work, then... um... maybe you shouldn't be doing it? That's the context for the advice I gave to the parent poster.

You can do simple plumbing and electrical stuff yourself. Just shut off the main valve or circuit breaker, change out the fixture (light switch, outlet, lamp, faucet, etc) and turn things back on. As long as you are careful to put wires back in same place it should be fine. And there are plenty of videos on Youtube to guide you.

You should learn basic plumbing and electrical if you own a home. Not only does it save money, but it gives you freedom and allows you to evaluate the quality of work done by professionals you hire.

Easy to do electrical yourself. I guess it depends on where you live but a self-wire permit just needs you to walk through your plan and get a couple inspections. It's intimidating for sure but it was really easy to wire my basement. It might need some years of school/experience to do a whole house but once you do one light/switch/outlet they are pretty much all the same.

If you want to go the low-commitment route, a lot of makerspaces have plenty of equipment for building / making activities and offer classes in subjects as diverse as TIG welding and sewing.

As an exception that’s not a counterargument: in the 90’s, the galvanized-to-copper repipe plumber (and helpers including a son) whom did the house I grew up in also did dozens of houses in a wealthy area around SJ/Los Gatos for several years, raking in $200k+ personally for that time and probably later. Mostly referrals. Amazing, prompt, proactive customer service, setting expectations, after support and cool guy.

Professionalism, negotiation skills and quality service encourage referrals in places where friends / neighbors know one-another. That is, towns where customers having fewer friends or acquaintances (like neighbors or social media connections) tend not to scale via referral network effects. Also, a lifestyle business can scale somewhat by adding good employees carefully and encouraging a decency culture with accountability.

TL;DR - better companies need better cultures; keep superconnector customers insanely happy

More like 100k, but yes, salaries are high for highly trained trades jobs. You just have to get your foot in the door.

Wow as an engineer with a master's degree in LA you top out at around 100k which after taxes leaves you with barely enough to make rent. Can't be a housing boom here the locals are being displaced at lightening speed. I have 20 years of experience and a master's degree and I struggle to afford both rent and food but I work 100 hours a week for 40 hours pay to not be laid off. These guys could be making 400k in a union job, and not working that hard for it. We build the future but are allowed a life where we barely hang onto survival in California.