Ball Plumbing labor rates increase

We're raising the Ball Plumbing plumber labor rates to $88.00 an hour after having it $66.00 an hour for a long time. The increase will put us just below market rates.

Commercial plumbing accounts will remain at the old rates for now and will continue to be based on past business totals.


The new minimum is $133.00. It includes one (1) hour of labor and the $45.00 service charge.
Plumbing apprentice or laborer rates increase to $44.00 an hour.
The 15 minute time increments will remain.
The $45.00 plumbing service charge remains.


Overtime plumber labor rates will remain 50% ($132.00/hour) for after 5:00pm and weekends.

The parts mark ups will remain 50% over our cost for plumbing products under $100.00 and 100% for items over $100.00. Our plumbing parts costs are mostly retail costs.

The price book (contract prices or flat rate) is based on the $66.00 price and will stay like that for now. We may charge extra for parts and part collection, as those prices have risen dramatically.

The website will be updated with these prices soon.

Google Places and Ball Plumbing

Google Places is (are?) having a hard time keeping Ball Plumbing listed in their numbered list, though the organic listing is showing nicely.

What a weird, wonderful and interesting e-era we live in. It makes the inventions of the radio and t.v. pale in comparison.

9/11/2001.

The day that changed America.

That day that changed me:

When I use Netflix, I check the date of the film to see if it's pre-9/11. Films/shows made post-9/11 are strongly preferred.

When I think of heroes, Flight 93 is the standard.

When I hear "911", my head twitches just a little.

SEO and Bellingham water meters

Man-o-man, I hate this computer stuff. I keep drifting off to things like plumbing, mechanical or female. If there's a local SEO who wants to trade plumbing for SEO work, contact me. Please.

Bellingham proper is getting more water meters installed with a deadline of 2014 to have the whole town metered. For those who don't know, most homes in Bellingham don't have a water meter. They pay a flat rate for the service. While most people are conserving water, there are lots of leaks and dripping faucets out there. If they were metered, those leaks would have been repaired immediately.

I’ve spent most of today updating the website to meet Google’s new (to me) specs. My SEO skills were very 2001, but they worked for 5 years, so all is good. My site was a real mess, too.

 Google’s trying very hard to make their Google Places/Google+ as efficient as possible, which means reworking the system. Not easy to do considering how many changes businesses go through. We moved twice in three years and had to change and deleted listings and websites.

 My organic results have been nuked. My website was a mess with dead links, old keywords and wrong page titles. If I hadn’t been with Google since Day One, they would have nuked me long ago. I cleaned up all the pages and even read the directions Google supplies. Whoa.

 So, my DIY webmaster and SEO skills are now as sharp as a spoon. I hope to be listed again soon.

Google Places back again

Google Places ad is back. Thank you, Google, for the free ad.

Due to frequent demands, I cleaned up the main pages of the website. Seriously boring work.