# Supply Shortages



## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Anyone else experience supply shortages?

My first and so far only short was last week with some pvc fittings, supply house said it was hurricane repair.

I also had a real estate agent tell me today that his buyer ordered a septic tank a month or two ago and they couldn't deliver it until recently.


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

During the first lockdown we bought the last two 40ng short rheem heaters from our supply house. I ordered a wall hung Kohler sink and faucet, took about 3 months to get. Any back ordered parts, my customers seem to understand and are patient.

One supply house is a Milwaukee dealer. I ordered a Milwaukee weed whacker in may, got it just in time to use it once before winter. Ordered tool only, got a display model with a free charger and big battery. I’m happy with it.


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

I see it more regularly at my supplier and have to check another suppliers and I finish up at HD. HD is so powerful they get priority to get merchandise before supply houses.


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## Debo22 (Feb 15, 2015)

There was a shortage on air conditioners for a while. The supply houses were saving what they had for their dealers only.

I just went to Fergusons and they were out of hose bibbs. They said they didn’t know when they were going to get them in.


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## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

Supply chain issues have been going on for months. Mostly COVIOD related, but not completely.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

I had a customer wanting me to repair his Home Depot Rheem water heater
this weekend... it needed a new crappy Honeywell valve thrown on it according to 
the customer.... I attempted to get a part yesterday but they were not the same so I told him
to have Rheem just send them to him....

he texted me back and said forget it because he called Rheem and they were totally out 
of parts so they just gave him a whole new heater for a unit only 1 year old...
He installed it himself.... 

thats gratitude...


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

Master Mark said:


> I had a customer wanting me to repair his Home Depot Rheem water heater
> this weekend... it needed a new crappy Honeywell valve thrown on it according to
> the customer.... I attempted to get a part yesterday but they were not the same so I told him
> to have Rheem just send them to him....
> ...


Anyone who calls me saying they contacted the manufacturer for a warrantee never works out. They expect the repair for free or next to nothing. Most times from home Deep, they expect me to get a new heater from that store and bring it to them and bring the defective one back for free. Nope


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## A Good Plumber (Jun 18, 2008)

Back in March I ordered and received 160 side sensor, battery operated flushometer retrofit valves. the Sloan EBV-89-a and 120 battery operated, deck mount soap dispensers. 500 single hole American Standard sensor lavy faucets.
Sold and installed all but about 30 of the soap dispensers. 
I anticipated correctly. All commercial installations.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

Tango said:


> Anyone who calls me saying they contacted the manufacturer for a warrantee never works out. They expect the repair for free or next to nothing. Most times from home Deep, they expect me to get a new heater from that store and bring it to them and bring the defective one back for free. Nope


That seems to be the way things work out with the tight assed do it yourselfers
They installed the heater themselves to save some money and now I am supposed
to be like "Mother Teresia" or one of the sisters of charity and come out and spend my
day doing the leg work for them for basically nothing..... They squeal like babies when you 
tell them the price to repair their units.....


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## Isaiah (Dec 6, 2020)

Only supply shortage I've noticed is with gloves, but it's been getting a little easier to find them now. Ferguson is usually out but the local Hirsch pipe supply has them.


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## Nazareth (Sep 30, 2017)

Just before Thanksgiving I went in to a local well known supply house and there was a guy there asking for a 3/4 hp disposal, guy said they would be out for at least two months

Yikes


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## ShtRnsdownhill (Jan 13, 2016)

I went looking for a new side by side re fridge ...nothing in stock at 2 appliance places I use...and they said its going to be weeks or months , they dont know when they will be back in stock...


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## bawalter (Dec 23, 2020)

With the rush to buy freezers because of food supply concerns, etc. I have seen stories about that adding to the cost of copper. As copper continues to go up in price, so obviously is brass. Copper and brass being pretty important to our industry, makes the current market a bit volatile. I read this article about copper shortages in the coming years and it makes it even a bit more daunting, IMO: Copper: The Most Critical Metal - FNArena


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## ShtRnsdownhill (Jan 13, 2016)

bawalter said:


> With the rush to buy freezers because of food supply concerns, etc. I have seen stories about that adding to the cost of copper. As copper continues to go up in price, so obviously is brass. Copper and brass being pretty important to our industry, makes the current market a bit volatile. I read this article about copper shortages in the coming years and it makes it even a bit more daunting, IMO: Copper: The Most Critical Metal - FNArena


thats not why...AMMO....................brass cases, copper bullets...............and primers........by the billions..and the weight adds up fast....


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## bawalter (Dec 23, 2020)

ShtRnsdownhill said:


> thats not why...AMMO....................brass cases, copper bullets...............and primers........by the billions..and the weight adds up fast....


I'm a shooter and a reloader and that's more of a manufacturing bottleneck than a supply of brass. Just saying.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

bawalter said:


> I'm a shooter and a reloader ..............


Me Gusta.


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## bawalter (Dec 23, 2020)

skoronesa said:


> Me Gusta.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Do you watch forgotten weapons?


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## bawalter (Dec 23, 2020)

skoronesa said:


> Do you watch forgotten weapons?


Haven't heard of it.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

bawalter said:


> Haven't heard of it.


It's this younger guy named Ian who lives in arizona. Over the past ten years he has gone from firearms enthusiast to being one of the top firearms historians around. He really know his stuff and has a good sense of humour. He is very thorough and has gone to darn near every private armory there is to visit. One of his common video topics will be antique firearms at auction houses. They have him do videos on their most interesting current offerings.

Here's a video he made from the Government Armory of Spain;


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

No more ABS, here's the shelves at HD. Other box stores have been empty for the last 2-3 weeks. Completely EMPTY except 4"(Not sure I was in a hurry). I have enough for service calls just for a little bit. Starting today, I'm charging 4x the price.


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## Paulie B (Oct 22, 2011)

Right now it seems it's worse than it has been. Pvc is out of control with constant price increases. I'm having trouble getting watts brand stuff. One of my supply houses says that some of the toilet company's have limited him as to what he can buy based on past year's orders. I guess to try to prevent people from over stocking much like the toilet paper hoarding that had happened. 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk


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## Nazareth (Sep 30, 2017)

Can't find a 40g or a 50g for 100 miles here. No tanklesses, and we're extremely short of SDR. You're very lucky if you find any. 

You can still get ABS here, but basic fittings like p-traps have been out for weeks at every supplier. 

PVC is gone

Lord have mercy


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## Debo22 (Feb 15, 2015)

Nazareth said:


> Can't find a 40g or a 50g for 100 miles here. No tanklesses, and we're extremely short of SDR. You're very lucky if you find any.
> 
> You can still get ABS here, but basic fittings like p-traps have been out for weeks at every supplier.
> 
> ...


Very strange, I can’t figure out what changed in the last couple months.


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## Logtec (Jun 3, 2018)

ABS pipe and fittings are back in full stock in Toronto, still up about 15-20%.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Logtec said:


> ABS pipe and fittings are back in full stock in Toronto, still up about 15-20%.


Same here, we have darn near everything in stock but some prices are just a bit higher than usual. Not sure why some of the guys on here are having such issues.

Interestingly, prier hosebibb vacuum breakers are taking a week to get instead of a day or two. Probably just my supply house though, I can't imagine those are in very high demand.


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## Nazareth (Sep 30, 2017)

Stock went up but price increased here as well


Wtf


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## The Dane (Feb 19, 2015)

I just got a letter yesterday from a supply house saying my pricebook from February is not valid anymore as prices change daily now and it states some of the changes in price from February till now and I believe it said that PVC is up 80%. Inventory has been pretty consistent but I have noticed a bit more cases of "out of stock"

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## The Dane (Feb 19, 2015)

This was the letter I got the other day.

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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Our supply house has been out of 1-1/2" 4-band no-hub connectors for a couple weeks. Been getting 2-bands instead.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

In our town we have a shortage of Aquapex wirsbo pipe..... 

you can get rolls of it but not 20 foot straight lengths.... been this way for a month or more
now ..... I found one supply house that had 4000 feet of both 3/4 and 1/2 left so I bought
500 feet of each to tide me over ... 

I just put the packages in the back building with 
all those PVC fittings that no body wants......


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## Debo22 (Feb 15, 2015)

Uponor fittings shelves are empty


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Debo22 said:


> Uponor fittings shelves are empty
> View attachment 130587
> View attachment 130588



Just use sweat fittings, lord knows the hacks and homeowners won't put those out of stock!


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## canuck92 (Apr 1, 2016)

are wholesalers dont even sell pipe anymore, we were sending a guy to Toronto 4 hours away to buy skids of abs.
plastic has the same value as gold around here now. 
i cant wrap my head around why theirs no abs production still. this phukin covid b.s isnt a very good excuse anymore.


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## goeswiththeflow (Feb 24, 2018)

> i cant wrap my head around why theirs no abs production still. this phukin covid b.s isnt a very good excuse anymore


.

That right there. Businesses and governments everywhere are using it as an excuse to provide reduced and poor service. What I can't understand is this big labor shortage. Stores and restaurants everywhere here have signs up asking for patience because they just can't find anyone to work. Where the hell are all the teenagers to work after school jobs? They could almost name their price.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

goeswiththeflow said:


> .
> 
> That right there. Businesses and governments everywhere are using it as an excuse to provide reduced and poor service. What I can't understand is this big labor shortage. Stores and restaurants everywhere here have signs up asking for patience because they just can't find anyone to work. Where the hell are all the teenagers to work after school jobs? They could almost name their price.


I think the labor shortage is because the economy is going really well. Not enough restaurant servers because there are simply more customers more of the time. Those teenagers have been able to move up a rung on the employment ladder so they don't need to sign up for those bottom rung jobs.

We haven't had enough skilled tradesmen around here in a decade at least, starting pay is through the roof for anyone who knows their azzhole from their elbow.


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## goeswiththeflow (Feb 24, 2018)

Here too. We can't find apprentices or even helpers that are worth a damn. Even my 9 year old can follow directions better than them. Either that, or they turn out to be druggies or are "on the spectrum" or some schit. We are down to 4 licensed guys in the plumbing division, and 3 of us have been licensed for only a few months. While we have good support, we really are weak with experience, and that sometime affects our productivity. We just can't find anyone, with or without experience.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

goeswiththeflow said:


> Here too. We can't find apprentices or even helpers that are worth a damn. Even my 9 year old can follow directions better than them. Either that, or they turn out to be druggies or are "on the spectrum" or some schit. We are down to 4 licensed guys in the plumbing division, and 3 of us have been licensed for only a few months. While we have good support, we really are weak with experience, and that sometime affects our productivity. We just can't find anyone, with or without experience.



Welcome to my world..... we cant find anyone worth hiring so we just work by ourselves
I have found it to be very liberating as I dont have to babysit morons who claim they 
know how to do plumbing..... we are making the same money by ourselves that we used
to make with 5 trucks on the road.... .....and without the headaches... .


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## goeswiththeflow (Feb 24, 2018)

They have been giving me a kid starting his 4th year. I guess you could say that he's a net benefit, 51% help and 49% hindrance. He might make a good cop. He's always in my way when I don't need him, never there when I do. Kid can't even anticipate to get the eff out of the way when I turn around and start to move forward with me having to say so. He does things I don't tell him to do, that I don't want done, or at least not that way that I want. The things that I do tell him to do he doesn't do right. Guy with senority gets the crackerjack apprentice. I get the scraps.


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## MACPLUMB777 (Jun 18, 2008)

I had same problem back in L.A. in the 90's, could not get good help no matter how much we paid,


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

goeswiththeflow said:


> They have been giving me a kid starting his 4th year. I guess you could say that he's a net benefit, 51% help and 49% hindrance. He might make a good cop. He's always in my way when I don't need him, never there when I do. Kid can't even anticipate to get the eff out of the way when I turn around and start to move forward with me having to say so. He does things I don't tell him to do, that I don't want done, or at least not that way that I want. The things that I do tell him to do he doesn't do right. Guy with senority gets the crackerjack apprentice. I get the scraps.


Having a helper is like raising a child, scratch that, it actually is raising a child!

You're going to repeat your self A LOT. And every time you need to say it nicely or they will get distracted by their feelings of inadequacy instead of focusing on what they did wrong. If they do something wrong you need to have them do it again until they get it correct, even if that means you have to go back and fix it.

Worst part is you can't punish them. You need to be the kind of guy they want to like, this way when you say "I'm not mad, I'm just really disappointed.", it will make them want to do better next time.

Having a helper isn't just about having someone to help you, the other half of that equation is they get someone to teach them how to do things correctly. Like my olb boss said, an education is expensive, and someone is going to foot that bill. In this case you will partially be footing that bill and paying with your time and energy.


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## canuck92 (Apr 1, 2016)

goeswiththeflow said:


> .
> 
> That right there. Businesses and governments everywhere are using it as an excuse to provide reduced and poor service. What I can't understand is this big labor shortage. Stores and restaurants everywhere here have signs up asking for patience because they just can't find anyone to work. Where the hell are all the teenagers to work after school jobs? They could almost name their price.


we have one of the highest rates of unemployment in my city, and to make it worse as of april 1st our Chrysler plant is going down to 1 shift...theirs 1800 jobs gone, and the plant will be closing in the near future. we are the " automotive" capital of Canada our local economy will be fked ( ill wait an buy a house then )


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