A Worthy Trade Alternative
Many of you reading this are in your late teens or early 20s. That is a prime age to enter training for a career in a skilled trade. The purpose of this blog is to help you, as the title of this website makes clear, to “explore the trades.” I’m going to depart from that […]
A Shortage Is About To Become A Crisis
In writing this blog, I follow a variety of construction news sources. Sometimes I need to read between the lines to develop the full meaning of what’s going on. That’s what happened when I came across a recent news story stating that the construction industry will need to attract nearly 650,000* additional workers on top of […]
The Joy of Physical Fitness
The trades have come a long way from the bad old days when so many tasks required brute force. Everything from power tools to material handling lifts make the jobs much easier than decades ago. Persons of any size or gender now can handle a trade career. Within reason. Although trade work is easier than […]
Are You An Entrepreneur?
That big French-sounding word in the headline refers to starting and owning your own business. It’s not an easy thing to do. Entrepreneurs who start a new business typically work 60 hours or more each week for years while earning modest income before success enables them to fully enjoy the fruits of their labor. Often, […]
Favorable Trends for the Trades
“Better to be lucky than good,” is a tongue-in-cheek quip often used to describe favorable bounces while playing golf and other sports. I would also use it to describe prospects for people deciding on a trade career nowadays. A number of economic, demographic and social trends are aligning to boost demand for trade work. One […]
Can You Be a Jack of All Trades?
In my last several blogs I’ve outlined the influence of smart homes on skilled trade workers in HVAC, electrical and plumbing. Modern technology forces an interaction among these trades. Home appliances and many plumbing fixtures require electricity to operate, so that even plumbers and HVAC technicians must understand at least the fundamentals of an electrician’s […]
Smart Homes Need Smart Plumbers
Plumbing is perhaps the least glamorous of all the skilled trades, subjected to endless potty humor. That is unfair, because plumbing is also the most fundamental of all the trades. Long before humans discovered electricity or devised central HVAC, ancient civilizations in Greece and Rome recognized that waste disposal is critical to human well-being and […]
Smart Homes Need Smart Electricians
It’s hard to believe that there are still people alive who grew up without electricity in their homes. Think of what life was like without lights that turn on and off with the flick of a switch, without refrigerators, toasters, microwave ovens and so many other electrical appliances, without outlets in every room of the […]
Smart Homes Need Smart HVAC/R Technicians
The human race has come a long way from fireplaces and stoves to keep warm and hand-held fans to cool off. For more than a century we have learned to harness the physical properties of air and water to keep us warm in winter and cool in summer. Doing so has required the use of […]
Smart Homes Need Smart Technicians
“Wrench jockey” is a somewhat insulting term sometimes used to describe a trade worker. These days, the terminology is not only unkind but off the mark. Sure, wrenches, screwdrivers and other manual tools are still essential components of a toolbox, but the tools of the skilled trades are constantly evolving to include sophisticated electronic instrumentation […]