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Starting a Career in the Trades
00:00:00
Baker Plbg
Okay, hope everybody's having a fabulous, is it Wednesday today? I think it's Wednesday today. um I'm going to do a quick. My thoughts, not yours on how to get started in this career. I, it is almost a daily question now, either on, uh, the socials or in the worlds that I operate in.
00:00:21
Baker Plbg
somebody
Beginning in Residential Construction
00:00:22
Baker Plbg
is always asking me cause you know, the trades are now the new get rich quick scheme, which is absolutely not true. Um,
00:00:34
Baker Plbg
how their kid should get started in the trade. I think it's great. I've certainly been asked more in the last year than I've ever been asked in my whole life ah how to get into this thing.
00:00:45
Baker Plbg
And my answer is the same every single time. um You need to get into ah residential construction. ah New construction is where it's at. Not Renaults, new construction. there's ah There's four or five...
Learning from Journeymen
00:01:03
Baker Plbg
um ah companies in this town that focus solely on that and do really well at that and are successful and and financially viable in those worlds, which is a trick all to itself.
00:01:17
Baker Plbg
um and But if you do that, then you get to see, you get to handle the the materials, you get to see how systems are run, you get to understand how they look behind the drywall and how they all interconnect.
00:01:30
Baker Plbg
And the best way, ah once you under have that sort of base understanding, And you can take it back and understand how to service that stuff. So I've seen lots of guys try to get into service right off the bat and it's a difficult, onerous ah way to go just because um the learning curve is steep.
00:01:53
Baker Plbg
And when you're dealing with service, people want results immediately. They don't want some rookie in there trying to figure something out for the first time. So with residential construction, particularly if you're an apprentice working with a journeyman, then you'll have the opportunity to learn how that stuff works. And to be perfectly honest, and this will tick everybody off, um everything, everything in residential construction is kindergarten plumbing, right? Like if you think that wet venting or stack venting or multi-story venting is, is,
00:02:28
Baker Plbg
ah
00:02:31
Baker Plbg
advanced plumbing, ah then you should stay there, is is my thoughts on that. ah But if you're interested in you know ah seeing where this trade can take you, that's where that's the first step.
00:02:46
Baker Plbg
there are
00:02:49
Baker Plbg
but people Obviously, people have other other opinions on that, but my suggestion is always, always, always find a big residential company that will happen that will sponsor your first year or so, ah probably give you a tool package that you can work off and get you into um residential building.
Residential Construction Market
00:03:13
Baker Plbg
There's lots of that going on in Calgary right now. I do think that that continues with the housing problems that we have, that's gonna continue to be a viable market.
Career Growth Pathways
00:03:22
Baker Plbg
And then once you've done that for a year or so,
00:03:25
Baker Plbg
The next steps, in my opinion, are you should ah do residential service and then do some new commercial buildings um and see how those work.
00:03:36
Baker Plbg
And then the hydronic side yeah is so brand new um and changes every day. and That's just a whole other world
Innovations in Hydronics
00:03:48
Baker Plbg
that you can mess with. like I think hydronics is fabulous.
00:03:52
Baker Plbg
It's come in my lifetime. um we used to run ah the very first system I did, i was probably 26 or 27. So that's, you know, 30 years ago, we were putting in copper in in the floor and running it in um
00:04:15
Baker Plbg
ah black steel, which is crazy.
00:04:20
Baker Plbg
It was an onerous task. And now, There's header, I guess just i every time every trade show you see, there's actually some, you know, it may be slight, but there's so some new innovation.
00:04:31
Baker Plbg
Anyway, there's a there's the beautiful thing about the trade is there's so many avenues that you can pursue and so many things that you can decide to hang your hat on and be successful at.
Finding Your Niche
00:04:45
Baker Plbg
It's a very varied, very varied,
00:04:50
Baker Plbg
ah There's a lot of ah wiggle room to to sort of find your niche is what I think. But the starting point in my estimation has to be and ought to be new commercial or new residential construction.
00:05:06
Baker Plbg
ah My thoughts, not yours. Have a blessed day. Good luck out there, everybody. Keep killing it, whatever you're doing.