Whenever we took our Scouts on a High Adventure Trip, we would get together to discuss the day’s adventure and apply roses or thorns (pain points) to comments regarding what each of us felt were good or bad moments. Thorns were scarce. I thought it might be useful to seek out several mechanical contractors and ask for their critique of wholesalers as well as a look back over the pandemic challenges they dealt with.
Ryan Barnett, owner/estimator/manager, F. W. Behler, York, PA.
Full disclosure, I am the former owner and sold the business to Ryan and his family in 2019.
Ryan Barnett: Like everybody, during Covid, we were having issues regarding the availability of products. One of the challenges was ensuring everything needed for a job was in stock, or tagged and held before we could start each installation. Repair parts were hard to come by too. We had to search high and low and become resourceful where obtaining things that were always available from multiple wholesalers. Wholesalers would tell us the part or equipment is due here tomorrow and then tomorrow never came. Salesmen and inside sales people at our wholesalers did their best, but they too were at the mercy of supply chain issues. For the most part, they kept us informed with whatever information they were being given. Sometimes, they would be allocated just ten of an item and you might be fourteenth on the list, so none for you that day. Personal visits by salesmen were suspended during Covid. Today, things are pretty close to being normal.
Ben Barnett, front office and scheduler, Behler, Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a great asset because he worked for a local wholesaler for many years. He is an ace where sourcing materials is concerned and knows his way around that wholesaler’s online catalog.
Ben Barnett: Pricing has been all over the map, so I am constantly checking material costs on a daily basis.
Ryan Barnett: Most of our wholesalers have online catalogs with pricing and availability, which we use constantly. During Covid, pricing quoted was good for that day only. Today, most wholesalers still limit holding quotes to just fifteen days. Copper and PVC quotes are generally good for that day only, but PVC has come down considerably.
One of the problems we face almost every day, are customers going online after the job has been completed to complain about the cost they were charged and it’s not unusual for them to have sourced the price online. One wholesaler that sells direct to the public charges just 3% above our cost, which leaves contractors no ability to mark up our materials when a wholesaler is willing to charge low margins to the public. One thing we had to do was purchase from online sources because no local wholesalers had the item(s) in stock with weeks out for delivery but the online supplier delivered to our door the next day, and for less money.
Hiring new employees is a challenge, but we did hire one guy from a trade school who is doing very well, but you have to be very competitive today to attract anyone. We primarily do repair and remodeling work, which requires a higher degree of experience than does new construction. Customers today opt for repairs rather than replacement. One recent service call was on a twinned gas power vent water heaters near your home that are eight years old. (I remembered installing those two water heaters!) One of the combustion blowers had failed and the owners decided to have it repaired instead of installing a new water heater
I’d say the worst problems we have with local wholesalers are warranty claims. Anything dealing with warranty is a pain point. We’re still waiting for material credits on a number of items, zone dampers, circulators, heat exchangers, etc., all less than a year old and, in more than a few cases, less than a month old! With the furnace heat exchanger, the hole created a carbon monoxide incident. The wholesaler no longer handles that brand, so they, at first, told us they would not provide a warranty credit. After working up the chain of managers, they said they will issue us credit, but we’re still waiting. Of course, there is never a labor credit.
Chuck Appleby, Appleby Plumbing Co., located in Old Lyme and Old Saybrook, Conneticut, is very actively involved in helping shape codes in Connecticut.
Appleby: During Covid getting materials became a huge challenge. No materials and no shipping by local wholesalers. What I found was buying by the pallet-load was the best way to circumvent that issue. Here’s the best part: we still got the 2% discount from our wholesalers, paying by credit card got us another 2% and buying in bulk earned an additional 10% discount. That 14% was money in the bank.
One direct benefit of the pandemic was training moved online, which saved tons of travel time for us because the school was an hour’s drive each way. I moved all of my codes board meetings online too.
Decarbonization has become a big deal in our area and we are installing lots of geothermal heat pumps. We drill lots of wells and I have one of the few geothermal borehole-drilling licenses. We stock sand sell tons of electric water heaters too.
Our wholesalers outdid themselves during Covid. I can place an order today and they will deliver right to the job site first thing in the morning. Things are pretty much back to normal today with wholesalers stocking at pre-pandemic levels.
Scott Milne, founder, Milne Plumbing & Heating, Manchester, Massachusetts, spoke about the challenges faced during Covid.
Milne: That was a very difficult time for us. Customers who did not want us in their home, or would hide in another area of their home when we came in to perform work. Still others who did not believe in Covid who refused to isolate or wear a mask and insisted we not wear one either. I remember asking one customer if I could use their bathroom and they told me to go outside and pee in the woods.
Plexiglass screens at wholesaler counters with mandatory masking and maintaining personal distances. No one knew what to believe or how to act. One of my sons got Covid very early on and we were scared to death he wouldn’t survive, but it turned out to be more like a bad case of the flu.
Material costs are still fluctuating like crazy. PVC has not yet come down in price. Andrew (Scott’s son) will obtain his Master’s License this year and he will eventually take over the business. We continue to install several boilers each week and we remain very busy. During the height of the pandemic, customers were using duct tape and bailing wire in attempts to avoid anyone coming inside their homes, so we were primarily doing just emergency work, which created lots of stress. Our local wholesalers are great but we still have wait times for materials that forced us to do business with online suppliers. We constantly fight the same battle with customers who price-shop our bills. Every mechanical contractor I speak with is dealing with the same issue.
