What inflation??

In this months edition of Official, they reprinted the entire first edition of the pub, from April 1958. There is an ad from Anaconda Copper, touting the savings from using copper DWV in stead of cast iron. They quote the following cost for a single family home, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, laundry:

Copper tube, assorted, 1¼" thru 3" $80.84
Assorted cast brass fittings $58.36
Solder and flux $1.10
12 hours labor $46.50
Total job $189.80

Cast iron, total job: $235.99

$3.88 an hour.
Sounds about right.

I bought my first house for $26,000
And my first new car for $1920
but not in 55
In 55 I hadn't even started school.

labor

If that is the contractor's selling price then it is low. I was a fifth year apprentice then making about $50.00 a week and driving a new '55 Lincoln convertible. (I was taking home 43.00 a week when I bought it.)

hj
How come you're not retired?

retired

1. Because I enjoy what I am doing.
2. My wife says she would have to go to work if I retired because she could not stand me being around 24 hours a day. And she doesn't want to go to work.
3. Probably several other good reasons but these are the major ones.

I wonder what piping a drain system with PVC or, ABS would have cost back then if it was available...

If only that $20,000 Ranch could have been made a little cheaper! LOL

Pot quiz for hj.
Please list the indispensable tools used when you started in plumbing, those invented since and include any which have become obsolete. That is, if you can find the time to do so.

tools

Please list the indispensable tools used when you started in plumbing,

4# hammer, cold chisel, ball peen hammer, caulking irons, Rigid 400 power vise, Triad die for small sizes, 65RA for larger pipe. Naptha/white gas fired lead melting furnace, and blowtorch using the same fuel. Acetylene torch.

those invented since

ALL the handheld propane torches, (one of the first ones actually used butane), soil snap cutters, all the PEX stuff. Copper sweating equipment is not "new", but it was not really used until the late 50's early 60's when the increase in labor costs of galvanized piping, offset the higher price of materials for copper.


and include any which have become obsolete.

Most tools do not become obsolete unless they were specific to a material that also vanished, such as all the cutters and lathes for ACP Transite water main. But I have all of those for anyone who still works with it somewhere in the world.

Obsolete: all the irons (though I still use my Mephisto Broad Curved Nose Packing Iron)

those invented since: The battery revolution, from hand held tools to scissor lifts, cameras, jetters, plastic pipe (boo), chop saws, plasma cutters, portable electric threaders, butt fusion (polyethylene) pipe, cell phones and computers

Anything else?

irons

You don't have to lead/oakum an occassional closet flange?

I lead in all my CI rings. I've only bought lead once in 30+ years because it's so easy, if messy, to recycle.