Take it: Six-figure local service opportunity (Better than copywriting!)

[biophase]

Thanks, I didn’t even know these existed.
I just searched for ro faucet combo and found these!

I also have a little sunk cost fallacy because the builder charged me $900 for my current faucet that’s a year old.

My current one:
View attachment 53386

I like this one:
View attachment 53387

And this second:
View attachment 53388

It took two weeks for the faucet to get here since it shipped from China. I also had to return the first RO unit that came since it malfunctioned. But now it’s finally done and no new holes had to be drilled and the new faucet looks a lot slicker than my old one. Thanks for starting this thread.

 

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[NewManRising]

I looked it up, and in my state I would need a plumbing license that requires 288 classroom hours and 8,000 on-the-job training hours!! That's the lowest level requirement too. Even if I'm ONLY installing under-sink water filters. Gotta love it.

You can hire a contractor to do it for you. I've done contract work for business owners who didn't know much about the work they were hiring for.

 

[Bounce Back]

Another thing to keep in mind is about once every two years or so the RO drain line where it connects to your sink drain can get clogged. When this happens water from the replenish stage pours of the air gap and can scare people that an emergency is going on (it can be a lot of water when it happens). Cleaning/checking that connector is preventative maintenance that should be done. The monthly rental helps make sure customers are up for paying for this (and also helps to upsell water softners as you can deliver the salt).

Additionally when you change the membrane itself and not just the post/pre (usually 1x a year) you are supposed to purge the system and sanitize with bleach and let it run 24 hours or so ( at least according to the specs of my RO but a lot of people skip these steps wrongly).

I am not an expert (and you should do your own research, yadda yadda) but I've installed 3 of these and have been a user of them for ~10 years now.

You can also look into add whole house systems or chlorine filters as well (chlorine filters are debated online a bit, fair warning).

 

[Two Dog]

It took two weeks for the faucet to get here since it shipped from China. I also had to return the first RO unit that came since it malfunctioned. But now it’s finally done and no new holes had to be drilled and the new faucet looks a lot slicker than my old one. Thanks for starting this thread.


View attachment 53726

This is a great value add option for the offer. I can't imagine any other plumber would offer a faucet like this as part of the installation. Save the counter drilling, less cluttered look, quicker install. Another variation could be some kind of valve switch that uses the existing faucet in place to accomplish the same thing.

 

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[MagicMoney]

San Pellegrino

It has pellegrino fluoride , RO filters it out

 

[SSTrey]

While I freely admit this is a great idea and I actually think it would work (which is rare), even if I was broke I wouldn’t do it. Involves meeting too many people, frequent travel, and physical work. I like to make money sitting in a chair.

*Prepares to be flogged for having a terrbile mindset*

Spoiler

I know what the consequences are, but still I do it… I must be a masochist

Love the value but I also have the 'sitting chair' mindset....LOL ... or at least, once Ive made it. haha

 

[ExaltedLife]

I have a business idea for someone who wants it. Someone please do this instead of copywriting or freelancing. You'll report back having made 6 figures in no time.

Reverse osmosis water filteration systems are very popular right now for good reason. City water is F*cking gross and full of chlorine and flouride (toxic waste) and RO systems remove everything... But installation is a problem for most people.

I have put a few of them in for us and family and anyone could learn to install them pretty easily.

These systems from APEC are fantastic and are only $200-300 on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I0ZGOZM/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Become an official dealer with them and they obviously get cheaper for you.

I think you'd be pretty busy installing these for $750 all in. I think most customers would view this as a great value. It would be a great word of mouth business with the opportunity for reoccuring revenue to swap out the filters for existing customers every 6 months. It probably takes an hour average to install if you have everything.

So you're making minimum $550 an hour without counting drive time. This is important because it means you can easily afford to hire good people and pay well to do the installs once you get busy. You can also keep adding cities to serve.

You and your technicians don't even really need a truck, just small SUVs or cars would be big enough to haul around all the tools necessary. So if you have a car. You could easily start doing this with less than $1000 initial investment.

Make a one-pager pitch and put it on 1000 doorsteps in an upper middle class community. That's the hardest you'll ever work in this business.

My first sales job was for a company called Pristine Solutions. They were a bit slimy, but they made BIG money selling these systems. Here's how:

They got kids to drop off flyers at neighborhood houses offering a free "special" showerhead if the homeowner listened to one of our presentations. That was the lead-getting method.

So then us sales guys would go to the home and conduct an elaborate sales presentation in which we showed them how shitty their tap water was and how much better our filtered water was. Little chemistry tricks, but they were legit. We had a container of filtered water with which we performed them. For example, soft water creates way more suds than hard water, so we showed them, among other things, how much money they would save on soap.

But here's the kicker. We sold a complete softener and 7 stage RO and remineralizing filter for...over $7000. I forget the exact price. Might have been 8 or $9000 CAD even. This was 12 years ago btw.

But wait, there's more! We had a partnership with the bank and offered financing. So now, clients could start taking care of their health and improving the water THEIR KIDS DRANK for a mere $40/month if they simply signed this loan agreement.

So, that's how you sell a system for 10x it's actual retail value.

I actually had a sales call with an engineer who laughed in my face. He was like: "Bro thanks for the presentation but I know for a fact I could get one of these systems for like $1000 bucks, so no thanks". It was shortly after that, and witnessing a coworker take advantage of grieving parents to fleece them that I quit.

Still - there's big opportunity there, and it is an ethical business if you do it in an ethical way. Improving the water people drink is a noble pursuit.

 

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[ExaltedLife]

@biophase, the drill you need is a hammer drill. I bought one from Porter-Cable. Hammer is a strong word for it, what it really does is rapidly viberate while it drills.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XJ6329S/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

I only paid about $100 for mine a few years ago. I have used it for numerous things like mounting a mailbox to a mini slab I poured, mounting exterior lights and cameras in brick, drilling through tile and granite.

Look up how to safely drill quartz. It can't be rocket science. You'd do a better job than some tweaker graniteyard guy they'd send out.

Edit: After a little research, diamond bits with a traditional drill actually seem to be an even more careful choice. I'd probably go that route now.

In my plumbing apprenticeship we drilled through stuff like porcelain and quartz. Use a diamond bit. Buy several, and get somebody to pour water on it while it drills. You will burn through bits quite rapidly. That shit is hard.

 

[Panos Daras]

Communist governments

Is the US a communist country? The situation there seems quite complex.
Try not to get sued by some a**hole.

 

[Kak]

Is the US a communist country? The situation there seems quite complex.
Try not to get sued by some a**hole.

Yes.

It just has a really pretty veneer.

The government owns half of your labor, they own all the real estate, they own half of your company, economic initiative, and your time devoted to earning. The government also owns the means of exchange and decides its value. You have to ask permission to do anything. The government has demonstrated their desire to pick winners and losers and use violence to ensure the outcome.

If you objectively look at how these western "free" countries are economically planned by a central force and compare them to an openly communist country like China, you will see more similarities than differences.

Most countries have the commie dial turned down just far enough to keep away a revolt.

 

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[Panos Daras]

Yes.

It just has a really pretty veneer.

The government owns half of your labor, they own all the real estate, they own half of your company, economic initiative, and your time devoted to earning. The government also owns the means of exchange and decides its value. You have to ask permission to do anything. The government has demonstrated their desire to pick winners and losers and use violence to ensure the outcome.

If you objectively look at how these western "free" countries are economically planned by a central force and compare them to an openly communist country like China, you will see more similarities than differences.

Most countries have the commie dial turned down just far enough to keep away a revolt.

I agree. The thing is that the modern system of governance looks more like a dystopian post-modern feudalism rather than communism.