When I was a plumbing manager, I needed a special type of assistant. He had to be able to estimate jobs of any size and type. He would be responsible for locating pipes that were beyond the capabilities of the line-locating equipment and would assist service technicians on deep excavations.
He needed advanced plumbing skills and a familiarity with building codes and OSHA regulations safe trenching. He needed intimate knowledge of inspection cameras and jetters. He had to be able to think in the field, close sales, and write a tight contract. In short, someone with superior skills in all facets of the plumbing and drain-cleaning business and advanced skills in associated technologies.
This person – called a rover – was an estimator, trainer and negotiator, and a service technician’s best friend. Not only would he make sales for the technicians, which increased their income, he would teach them how to do it themselves, by example.
Always learning
When a rover is on the job, the technicians make more money, and so does the company. Customers benefit from the rover’s accurate diagnosis. They take comfort in knowing they are in direct contact with an experienced person, committed to getting it right the first time. In addition, the way a rover performs rubs off on the technicians who call him for assistance.
My rover carried a camera, a line locator and a few specialized hand tools. Anything else he needed was already on the job in the technicians’ trucks. He traveled fast and light. He was on 24-hour call. He eliminated numerous customer complaints by anticipating them and never allowing those objections to occur. The result was smoother, hassle-free jobs with satisfied customers who gladly paid for a job well done.
In a small company, the rover is usually the owner. My rover was me. For five years, I hopscotched from one jobsite to the next – the toughest ones where my men needed help. That’s how a rover develops a high skill level. Every time his wits are challenged on a not-so-obvious diagnosis, or he encounters a new twist on an old problem, he learns something new. His bag of tricks grows daily.
A rover keeps your team sharp by continually learning, teaching and sharing information. When the rover shows up, he takes complete control. The technician should bring him up-to-date quickly, then take a quiet, secondary position. In the customer’s mind, the rover was called to give an expert diagnosis. He’s the answer man.
To the rescue
How does a rover help? One of our technicians called me out one day. He had been on the jobsite for several hours with a trailer jetter and could not clear a commercial drain stoppage. It was a strip mall with seven restaurants, and they were all flooding from their floor sinks and floor drains. Everyone was panicking because they had to close, and they were losing money. The mall owner was there too, frustrated and anxious.
I jumped in as the rover and went to work. This was a long sewer line with no cleanouts close to the stoppage. The jetter would bind almost 300 feet downstream. Old grease in a restaurant sewer can be as hard as rock.
This grease was too much for our jetter to break through. Every time we pulled the hose out of the pipe, it was covered with old, smelly grease. I told the owner we would need to locate the stoppage and cut the pipe. The owner was reluctant, but I took the “expert” posture, and he approved the job.
We strapped our locating transmitter to the jetter hose with several layers of electrical tape, about three feet behind the jetter-head, and allowed the jetter to pull the transmitter to the sticking point. I located the pipe at eight-feet-deep under a heavily traveled, six-lane boulevard, and it was rush hour.
Costly repair
This was a $10,000 repair, just for openers. The backhoe and my crew were digging within two hours. We called a pumper to take the greasy water as soon as we cut the line. After we exposed several feet of the pipe, the backhoe driver scooped out a pothole on both sides, deep inside the trench, directly alongside the spot where we wanted to make our first cut to purge the system.
The narrow partition of dirt between these adjacent holes, (directly below the pipe) had to be knocked down with shovels, creating a larger, singular catch basin below the sewer. We then lined the makeshift basin with plastic drop cloths.
The pumper positioned his hose into the protected basin we created and stood ready. We snapped the pipe, the water rushed out, and he pumped, all in one choreographed motion. Hundreds of gallons of greasy water were collected safely, leaving us a clean trench.
We replaced 10 feet of 8-inch sewer lateral and covered the trench with steel plates for overnight safety. The owner said, “Thank you, good job.” I could have said, “You’re welcome” and returned to the office, but I didn’t. This is where a well-schooled rover makes a profitable difference.
My response was, “Don’t thank me yet. We still have much to do. All we have done so far is to relieve the symptom. We need to find the causes and service the drains that are conveying grease.”
Clean them all
I then told the owner that since all the drains below the restaurants had been subjected to a major grease backup, they should be jetted now to remove the sticky residue left clinging to the walls of the pipes. It was less expensive to do it now, as the manpower and equipment were already on the site.
He approved that, too – 42 secondary drains. While jetting these drains, our jetters tunneled out of several pipes under the restaurant kitchens, exposing more needed repairs, which the owner also approved.
All the establishments had grease interceptors that had not been pumped in a long while. Since my pumper was on site, we offered to do it now. He approved that too. The pumper emptied each unit. We powerwashed the interior area with our jetter’s spray-gun attachment to break up the caked-on grease. Then we repumped the interceptors, leaving each one clean and empty.
To make a long story short, my rover sold $40,000 in immediate jetter work and sewer repairs using his camera, locator and jetter. When the owner presented the check several days later, he asked, “Are we done now, Pete?”
I kindly replied, “Nope. You just spent all this money, and it’s time to protect your investment. Let’s set up a preventative maintenance program, and I’ll warranty the drainage between the scheduled interval cleanings.
“You have an old, fragile plumbing system and several heavy grease contributors for tenants. I think a PM once a month for $2,250 is appropriate.” He didn’t like the idea of spending $27,000 annually to keep his drains flowing. He wasn’t very motivated. Besides, the interior drains were the responsibilities of the tenants.
One more push
I had one more idea. We invited all the restaurant owners to a tenants’ meeting and offered them a package deal, with the condition that they all had to participate. I reminded them that closing their stores for a single day would cost them at least several hundred dollars in lost business.
They agreed – it was obvious. I then offered them a maintenance program for the whole strip mall. Normally, the tenant pays for interior drain cleaning and the owner pays for outside sewer cleaning. The deal was that each tenant would pay $325 monthly, and we included the sewer service in the price.
They liked the plan. They didn’t want to repeat the mess and downtime they had just experienced. The owner liked it as well – the tenants were absorbing his portion of the maintenance expenses. I wrote a contract, and they all signed it. The maintenance would generate $27,300 annually, and it was a two-year contract.
That one drain stoppage yielded $40,000 immediately and $54,600 over the next two years. That’s what a rover with his camera, locator and jetter can do for you.
