The decline of skilled trades

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]

[li] Lack of promotion. In the case of machinists, people simply don’t know what they can do. Many of the other trades are in a similar boat. When I’ve told people that I’m a machinist, people often say to me, “What’s that?” or “Oh, so you work on car engines.” [/list][/li][/QUOTE]

It’s a tricky industry to be in right now. I know of a couple shops not too far away that have nice contracts for specialised stuff that (somehow) can beat the imports. I remember being offered a job (maybe everyone else was too, I dunno) in high school machine shop and I regretted not taking it. It didn’t seem to be a good career move because at the time the economy was terrible. Now the demographics are such that a lot of guys are retiring, which is good for apprenticeships.

42

I’d add to that list the following:

  • Lack of male role models in children’s lives. With more boys growing up in single-parent homes, usually with the mother, and with schools increasingly becoming female-dominated, there’s no one to teach little Johnny about mechanics or to learn to love working with his hands. I grew up without a dad, and I had to learn many, many basic things for myself that other boys learned from their dads. A lot of people who go into trades learn to love it by seeing their fathers working with their hands and learning to do so by their side.

  • A lack of respect for craftsmanship. Too many people today see trades as a way to a good income, and not as a way to allow them to build things and exercise their desire for fine craftsmanship.

But society is equally to blame here. We should respect people who can build quality things with their hands. A good craftsman used to be rewarded with status. That’s just not the case any longer.

Another factor is the rise of pre-fab manufacturing and assembly-line style construction. Unfortunately, a lot of trade work today doesn’t have a lot of craft or art to it. 100 years ago, the balustrades on your railing might have been lovingly turned by hand by a craftsman who put his own little personal touches in each one. Nowadays, those balustrades were mass-machined in a factory on a CNC lathe, and the carpenter who puts them in has almost no opportunity for artistic expression. It’s pre-fab assembly.

43

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
A lot of people who go into trades learn to love it by seeing their fathers working with their hands and learning to do so by their side.
[/QUOTE]

This is exactly how and why Mr. AdoptaMom became a master residential carpenter. His father was a residential contractor who started out as a carpenter, and he began bringing my husband on the job at a young age.

Our 15 year old son has been working with my husband sporadically during the summers since he was about eight years old. This summer will be his first “full time, full expectations” summer, during which he will be expected to work “like a man”. He’ll be doing a lot of the grunt work, but learning every step of the trade along the way. We’ve reared him with the expectation he will go to college, but as insurance we want him to be able to support himself well if he choses not to. Plus, by summers end, he’ll have quite the nest egg for an eventual down payment on a car.)

44

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
This is a good point to keep in mind. Everyone I know in the trades who’s getting on in years has experienced a certain amount of physical breakdown. And what are the job prospects for a 50-year-old roofer or drywall hanger whose knees are shot? Pretty poor, I’d imagine.
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That’s funny… my wife is in project management at a call center. They’ve had two strokes this past year, several heart issues and at any given time a third of their workforce has open FMLA claims. It’s vanishingly rare that anybody lasts more than a few years. Sitting on your ass all day, doing the same thing over and over takes it’s toll too.

45

The trades are rough and it’s difficult to get someone from outside a trade environment to come in adjust to it and stick with it.

I’m the third generation of my family business(wells and water pumps). My father like many other tradesmen was resistant to me staying in the trades. Most want their kids get a desk job and avoid a life of backbreaking work. My father for a lot of my brother and I’s life dragged us to work with him when we were available. His various reasons for doing so include: To teach us how hard the work was. So we would learn basic technical skills. Easier then finding someone to watch us. Slave labor(he did actually pay us). In my teens father and his various contacts would occasional ‘trade’ kids so I might work for a plumber and my father would hire the son of a plumber he does business. It was easier for everyone involved to find apprentices that would work. Hiring a a teenager that didn’t grow up with a parent that worked in trades never seems to work. They often lack the work ethic required.

The trade pool has been dwindling because tradesmen parents want and pressure their kids to pursue a ‘better’ life and the children of those people living the ‘better’ life make poor candidates to pick up a trade.
The licensing requirements and book work required to continue doing the trade work are becoming such a drain some people just give up trying to work within the rules or give up on a trade. Many people working in trades don’t have the mental ability and/or desire to deal with the growing bureaucracy. For my family business the license we work with is a ‘well drilling license’ it in theory covers drilling wells(any type, in theory I can drill for oil in MA) installing the pumps and related equipment. The specifics are not well defined. Basically I can do the required plumbing from inside the well to the house into the pressure tank out of the tank to the main valve. after the main valve a plumber takes over. I’m allowed to run the electrical in the well but any other work should be done by an electrician. The building inspectors are not educated in what my license covers and what it doesn’t they see me doing something a laymen might define as electrical or plumbing demand I have that license instead. Some things have I have been able to find clear decisions on what I’m allowed to do or my license no longer covers.

Right now in order to continue in the future doing the same work my grandfather did with his well drilling license(which only required a basic written test) I will need

a well drilling license-3 extensive written tests 4000 hours working as an apprentice for a licensed driller. Must be able to prove you maintain education in your field upon questioning for the licensing board.

journeyman’s electricians license. 8000 hours apprenticeship in no less then a 4 year period. 600 hours class time(typical takes 4 years)

journeyman’s plumbers License another 4 year apprenticeship

All this in the name of protecting customers. Instead of them researching and finding a reputable tradesmen that isn’t a hack. People now have the security that the guy in the phone book meets requirements that don’t prove they aren’t a hack anyway.

I’d much rather spend my time doing physical labor over the endless paperwork, researching permit requirements, going to classes or socializing with town bureaucrats(in MA your much less likely to have trouble with inspectors if your friends with them quality of your work is irrelevant.

46

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

  • A lack of respect for craftsmanship. Too many people today see trades as a way to a good income, and not as a way to allow them to build things and exercise their desire for fine craftsmanship.

But society is equally to blame here. We should respect people who can build quality things with their hands. A good craftsman used to be rewarded with status. That’s just not the case any longer.

Another factor is the rise of pre-fab manufacturing and assembly-line style construction. Unfortunately, a lot of trade work today doesn’t have a lot of craft or art to it. 100 years ago, the balustrades on your railing might have been lovingly turned by hand by a craftsman who put his own little personal touches in each one. Nowadays, those balustrades were mass-machined in a factory on a CNC lathe, and the carpenter who puts them in has almost no opportunity for artistic expression. It’s pre-fab assembly.
[/QUOTE]

I was thinking about this this morning, as I passed some dreary new house that speculators had thrown up. Once upon a time, people actually cared what the buildings they lived and worked in looked like. Nowadays, people just care that everything be done to code, and to hell with the aesthetics.

I think boytyperanma makes another good point, which is that there was a moment in our nation’s history when parents who worked blue-collar jobs were adamant that their children “get an education” and "better themselves’’ – which meant getting into the better status of the white-collar world. But many of those white-collar jobs frankly suck (see lokij’s post above), and “status” ain’t what it’s cracked up to be either.

47

There are some parallels between fine craftsmanship and the white-collar world.

My son-in-law trained as a luthier and got himself a job making guitars with one of the big companies. Every guitar was hand-inspected and touched up to make it as close to perfect as possible. Unfortunately, the repetitive work led him to carpal tunnel surgery at age 25. Now, he’s training as a network engineer, and there’s a very strong focus on uptime. I think the pride a network tech/engineer feels for a smoothly-running computer network is similar to the pride a craftsman takes in his guitar (or whatever it is that he builds).

48

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
I was thinking about this this morning, as I passed some dreary new house that speculators had thrown up. Once upon a time, people actually cared what the buildings they lived and worked in looked like. Nowadays, people just care that everything be done to code, and to hell with the aesthetics.

[/QUOTE]

I have to disagree with this. I think that you are romanticizing the past somewhat. Architectural styles have changed but also the crappy stuff that was built one hundred years ago has been mostly torn down and the better stuff has remained. How much of what was slum housing has been torn down.

Anyhow, the concept of cookie cutter construction was alive then as well. Almost half of the houses in my neighborhood are Queen Anne rowhouses with three windows in the bay. They all look very similar and were probably considered

49

[QUOTE=Honesty]
Germany has an exquisite system that addresses this. From what I gather, the school system bifurcates at around grade 8 where students go down trade tracks or college-prep track. I don’t know whether it’s true, but in any case, I think such a system should be implemented, even as a pilot program, in the United States. It ensures that high school graduates will be able to make a living doing something.
[/QUOTE]
I met a German woman who taught “math for baking”. I like the idea of better trade schools.

50

[QUOTE=Caffeine.addict]
Anyhow, the concept of cookie cutter construction was alive then as well. Almost half of the houses in my neighborhood are Queen Anne rowhouses with three windows in the bay. They all look very similar and were probably considered
[/QUOTE]

…yes?

You’re right that I’m romanticizing the past somewhat, but only somewhat. These days, for example, it’s not that uncommon to see a porch roof held up by unpainted 4 x 4 pressure-treated lumber, where in the past, even in low-end houses, you’d have seen turned posts, or some other modest attempt at decoration. And back in the day, even factories used to look quite handsome, with decorative brickwork and such. Anybody building handsome factories today? And don’t get me started on all the anonymous cinderblock commercial buildings that exist today. They’re very grim to walk past day by day, let me tell you.

51

My post got cut off. I was going to say that the homes were probably considered look alike housing then as modern subdivisions are now.

Don’t forget how much roomier newer homes are now compared to those houses. Quite a few of them were only two bedrooms and they had very tiny closets if they had anything at all. You might also only have one bathroom in the house which was to be shared amongst however many people lived in the house.

I do agree with you regarding the decorative brickwork. My house which was in a working class neighborhood is covered in decorate brickwork in the front part of the house. Much less so in the back.

I blame the trend toward less ornamentation on the Craftsman style. There are a lot of those in the neighborhood and they are much less decorated.

52

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
…yes?

You’re right that I’m romanticizing the past somewhat, but only somewhat. These days, for example, it’s not that uncommon to see a porch roof held up by unpainted 4 x 4 pressure-treated lumber, where in the past, even in low-end houses, you’d have seen turned posts, or some other modest attempt at decoration. And back in the day, even factories used to look quite handsome, with decorative brickwork and such. Anybody building handsome factories today? And don’t get me started on all the anonymous cinderblock commercial buildings that exist today. They’re very grim to walk past day by day, let me tell you.
[/QUOTE]

But this is necessitated by the economics of modern house construction, by the dramatic increase in pay that skilled trades get, and by the myriad housing codes that have popped up that make it very difficult to bring truly modern manufacturing techniques to housing.

I was watching ‘This Old House’ one day, and they were restoring a railing on an old house. It was difficult, because the old railing was hand made, and therefore every piece of it was slightly different. It was all hand-fitted together. The contractor the host was talking with said that if the railing had been made by hand today the way it was then, it would have cost about $18,000 because of the labor involved. This was installed in what would have been a middle class home at the time - maybe upper middle class, but no more. And the railings weren’t that elaborate. The equivalent railing system if purshased at Home Depot from factory-made parts would cost no more than $1,000 or so.

We used to live in a 60 year old home that would have been a ‘starter home’ or at best a middle class family home when it was built. It was about 800 square feet in size. And yet, the original finishing inside was beautiful. It had a coffered ceiling with custom plasterwork troweled on in intricate designs, with wood wainscotting around the walls. The doorways had lovely scrollwork in the wood trim. The construction was full of little touches like that. But imagine how expensive it would be to build a home like that today, when you’re paying the carpenter $35/hr. It’s just not feasible for anyone but the rich or people who do their own work.

Nowadays, a drywall crew comes in, slaps up drywall for a room in a day, spends another day taping, then a paint crew comes in for half a day to paint the room, and finally carpeting and baseboards will take another day or so. If the room is really fancy, some pre-fab trim might be put in and you might spray on a knock-down ceiling finish instead of a popcorn ceiling. That’s about it. There’s just very little room in the process for a lot of personal expression.

But in the 21st century, why are we still making houses like this? We should be buying modular composite wall panels built in a factory and plugging them together. And while there are a few manufacturers of these types of homes, there’s a big reason why we don’t see real advances in housing construction - the myriad of building codes that have been put in place largely to protect the existing construction industry. It’s a perfect example of regulatory capture in action, where the industry being regulated manages, over time, to twist the regulations to their benefit.

I remember reading an article about a university that build a modern home architecture for modular construction. The walls had the plumbing and electrical and insulation molded right inside them, with press-fit plumbing connectors and electrical connectors that basically allowed these walls to snap together in many different combinations to make houses of different sizes and styles. It was super efficient, almost indestructible, and could be mass-produced. But they couldn’t weave through the maze of zoning regulations and building codes through the country. In one area, the press-fit plumbing connectors wouldn’t pass code, because the code required threaded connectors. In another, it would be the elelectrical that was a problem. In yet another, the wall construction. etc. At the time (this was maybe 10 years ago), they said that there was just no good way to build homes using one construction method and have it pass the laws of every state. Sometimes the laws were even contradictory (what was mandated in one region was completely disallowed in another), which essentially forces homes to built from scratch on the spot.

Some things are pre-fabbed now - roof trusses, for example. But we’re still stuck with mid-20th century construction techniques, and that’s so expensive that there’s no room for craftsmen to really be creative.

The same is true for furniture. We all live with assembly line furniture now because the handmade stuff is outrageously expensive. Custom making a high-quality bureau from solid wood might take 100 hours or more. At $30/hr, that’s $3000 just in labor. Add in the wood, the dealer markup, shipping costs, etc., and you’re look at a $6,000 piece of furniture. Only the rich can afford that kind of stuff.

So… If you’re a craftsman and you want to make a good living, it’s hard to find a market. You’re just too expensive.

53

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
But this is necessitated by the economics of modern house construction, by the dramatic increase in pay that skilled trades get, and by the myriad housing codes that have popped up that make it very difficult to bring truly modern manufacturing techniques to housing.(snip)
[/QUOTE]

If we built automobiles the way we build houses, with workers transporting parts to your driveway and assembling on the spot it would cost 5 or 10 times what the factory built ones cost.

54

Sam, I agree with much of what you wrote (though not this: “the myriad of building codes that have been put in place largely to protect the existing construction industry”), but there needs to be a middle ground. Sure, you’ll pay extra for something nicer, but that was just as true in the 19th century as it is today. But they were willing to pay it, and we seem not to be (and I’m generalizing, of course). I just see an overall decline in caring, an indifference to how things look. How else could I explain the aluminum and vinyl siding that have been slapped over older houses around here? It looks like shit, but… you’ll never need to paint again!

55

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Sam, I agree with much of what you wrote (though not this: “the myriad of building codes that have been put in place largely to protect the existing construction industry”), but there needs to be a middle ground. Sure, you’ll pay extra for something nicer, but that was just as true in the 19th century as it is today. But they were willing to pay it, and we seem not to be (and I’m generalizing, of course). I just see an overall decline in caring, an indifference to how things look. How else could I explain the aluminum and vinyl siding that have been slapped over older houses around here? It looks like shit, but… you’ll never need to paint again!
[/QUOTE]

But the point is that they could afford to pay it, because the people who did that work didn’t make the kind of money people make today. It’s not a matter of being uncaring about art and style, it’s just the nature of the economics of homebuilding. If I’m in the middle class or lower middle class, and trying to save money for my kid’s education and pay off my debts, there’s no way I’m going to spend $18,000 for a railing for my house, $5,000 for a custom ceiling treatment, $500 extra per room for 2-tone paint, etc., well, I’m going with drywall and eggshell latex on the walls, and not much else. That other stuff is poor luxury, and most people are already stretched to the limit when they buy a home.

56

I think we can’t really compare apples to apples here, to tell you the truth.

Until my grandmother got married in 1940, she lived with my great-grandparents in rented furnished apartments, a style of housing that has nearly completely vanished. They were about all my great-grandfather, a sporadically employed laborer during the Depression, could afford.

Rooms like this were a very common form of housing at the time, even for families. For unattached men and women, boarding houses were the common choice, as at least one meal a day would be included with your housing cost. Again, this choice has vanished from the landscape.

For all of the talk about how homes are more expensive now, it is also true that more people can afford them - the rates for home ownership are at historic highs.

57

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Sam, I agree with much of what you wrote (though not this: “the myriad of building codes that have been put in place largely to protect the existing construction industry”), but there needs to be a middle ground. Sure, you’ll pay extra for something nicer, but that was just as true in the 19th century as it is today. But they were willing to pay it, and we seem not to be (and I’m generalizing, of course). I just see an overall decline in caring, an indifference to how things look. How else could I explain the aluminum and vinyl siding that have been slapped over older houses around here? It looks like shit, but… you’ll never need to paint again!
[/QUOTE]

Wood siding looks nicer but you have to paint it every few years and wood deteriorates. I just had my home painted and it ran me about $4,000.00. Do you or anyone else want to spend that kind of money on a consistent regular basis.

Just out of curiousity, how much more would you pay for the custom trim versus the mass produced kind?

To me the problem with the building codes is that they don’t always keep up and they vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I do believe that there should be some room because the requirements in California will be wildly different from the requirements in Vermont, but there is no reason that there should be variation from one county to the next.

Compared to plaster, drywall is a huge improvement. It means I can get a wall up in a day or two as opposed to a few weeks. It is a lot cheaper to install and requires much less skill which means I can install it myself instead of having to hire a plasterer. It also tends to be much smoother and less irregular.

58

[QUOTE=Caffeine.addict]
Just out of curiousity, how much more would you pay for the custom trim versus the mass produced kind?
[/QUOTE]

I’m talking less about the difference between trim and custom than I am about the difference between trim and no trim. In my initial example, I was talking about the practice of using unpainted pressure-treated lumber to hold up a porch. Just painting would be an improvement, and it would cost, what, $50?

And it’s not only houses. Look at light-industrial buildings these days – garages, workshops, small factories. They’re uniformly ugly – usually concrete-block construction, with no decorative detail at all. A hundred years ago, that wasn’t the case, at least not always. I can think of several examples from around here of quite handsome light-industrial buildings of that vintage. Attitudes have simply changed. Part of the change was driven by the cost of labor, but it’s also true that the cost of labor reflects the change in attitude.

59

[QUOTE=Caffeine.addict]
Wood siding looks nicer but you have to paint it every few years and wood deteriorates. I just had my home painted and it ran me about $4,000.00. Do you or anyone else want to spend that kind of money on a consistent regular basis.
[/QUOTE]

I should respond to this as well. A hundred years ago, people had no choice – they had to use wood for siding, and they had to paint. These days, you have choices, and the attendant costs of those choices. You paid $4,000, and if you amortize that over the life of the paint job, call it $400 a year. Is that a lot or a little? Well, it’s hard to say. To me it doesn’t seem like so much, in the grand scheme of things. Suffice it to say that it’s a question of priorities.

60

[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
I’m talking less about the difference between trim and custom than I am about the difference between trim and no trim. In my initial example, I was talking about the practice of using unpainted pressure-treated lumber to hold up a porch. Just painting would be an improvement, and it would cost, what, $50?

And it’s not only houses. Look at light-industrial buildings these days – garages, workshops, small factories. They’re uniformly ugly – usually concrete-block construction, with no decorative detail at all. A hundred years ago, that wasn’t the case, at least not always. I can think of several examples from around here of quite handsome light-industrial buildings of that vintage. Attitudes have simply changed. Part of the change was driven by the cost of labor, but it’s also true that the cost of labor reflects the change in attitude.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with you to an extent. I am fond of the ornamentation found on older buildings of that vintage and I also find some of the more modern concrete block buildings ugly. Hell, I find most concrete block construction to be ugly. I’m also dislike the look of aluminum siding. I would use hardiplank if I lived in a house that needed new siding.

One reason, you might see unpainted pressure treated lumber though is that you have to let it cure for about a year before you can stain or paint it. I just had a railing installed on my front stoop and I can’t stain it yet since it won’t hold the stain. A coworker of mine tried to stain new pressure treated lumber and the stain washed out in a month.