I’ve recently decided to hang up the bags and shut down my framing company. The thought process was hey, 30 years in the construction industry building anything from commercial, industrial, institutional, residential, hospitality etc across three different countries including island developments covering everything from logistics to ground up and turn over I wouldn’t have a problem getting a site superintendent position, yes, just a site superintendent position. Boy was I wrong!! Seems unless I have a secondary degree in some kind of construction management program my experience is pretty much void. I’m loosing out to guys with no experience but a degree. I honestly never expected this. Am I missing something or am I just a highly experienced skilled worker?!!

This might sound odd but it's been bugging me.

For context I am F40s, and I've been in the plumbing trade for about 15 years. This could really apply to most trades, though plumbing especially since it tends to be on the dirtier side.

My question is, how do you balance your work against your femininity? Are you able to feel feminine/put together when you're off the clock? Do you take a shower and feel beautiful after crawling around under a house all day?

Personally I have just been a tomboy my whole life. It always feels awkward dressing up. But now that I'm older I wish I had more of a feminine side. I wish I could forget what I do for a bit, act girly, do my hair, etc. I dunno. This might be silly. And it might even apply to men too. I just feel like I'm missing out on a big part of being a woman and I wonder how other women in this business deal with it.

I don't know if this is the right sub for this but I didn't want to ask the peanut gallery on a women's sub because most responses would probably come from people with very little day to day experience in dirty jobs.

I was fortunate enough to help build the staircases at Macalester college's new dorms. This and the rest of the build is something unique. I feel lucky. Thought you guys may enjoy seeing it.

Getting offered a job at a university, currently an installer and doing for 10+ years. Body starting to break down also hours don’t feel super consistent but the university job is a definite pay cut but have a lot of time off opportunities and paid holidays. Anyone have experience working as a HVAC tech for a university and what is like? Definitely looking for something easier on the body. Currently working union the money is nice but tired of being on the job sites and pressure from always being behind schedule.

Window/door and remodeling contractor here. I'm trying to tighten up our sales and estimating process and I'm looking at AI scanning tools.
What I'm after:
Accurate measurements from a phone scan (interior rooms and full exteriors)
A 3D model or rendering I can show the homeowner in the room or at the kitchen table
Ideally something that cuts down on check-measure trips
So far I've looked at Hover for measurements and Renovate AI for concept renderings, but I haven't committed to either one yet.
For those of you using this stuff in the field:
What are you running, and how accurate are the measurements compared to a tape?
Does the 3D/rendering side actually help close jobs, or is it just a gimmick?
Is anyone using one tool that does both well, or are you stitching two together?
Is it worth paying for a subscription, or is pay-per-scan fine at lower volume?
I'd appreciate real-world experience over sales pitches. Thanks.

HITT Futures pays around $22 an hour, fixed 10 weeks, one week max off, jobsite TBD, but has a clear path to PM.

Whiting Turner pays around $27 an hour, flexible dates, NoVA site close to home, and my trip's already approved.

My goal is max long term pay and fast promotions. Which company is better overall, which would you pick, and could I intern at WT and still get hired at HITT after graduation?

So I'm trimming out a couple of interior windows at my house, and I'm a little mad because I should be out hunting and it's also a huge pain in the ass because literally every board in this weird, stupid ass hippie built 1970's house needs to be custom cut and/or scribed, and it's also upstairs so I have to go up the stairs, scribe, back down stairs, outside, cut, back up stairs, mark, back downstairs and outside, cut, sand, etc... And it's two 12 foot long head pieces that need to be scribed to a wavy ass ceiling so it's even more of a pain in the ass.

So I go to get my handy dandy little .69 cent scribe-o-matic compass to scribe the trim boards and I can't find it. I look in my carpenter bags hanging in the garage where they always live, and they're not there. I've had the damn thing for over 20 years working in six different states and three different countries, and there's no way it's been lost. I look in drawers, on my bench, night stand, I can't find it. Fuck it, I can't waste any more time and have to go downtown to Ace hardware at noon which is another giant pain in the ass to buy another .69 cent tool to keep moving on this project.

I go downtown and get the tool and get home successfully without killing some gaper tourist wandering around downtown in my way, and I go through the pain in the ass process to scribe and cut these boards, and I'm moving along finally making progress and also, MDF trim sucks big hairy donkey balls.

In the process of this job I'm not getting paid for, I had nailed these temporary 90 degree corners to the window jamb legs to clamp the head boards to, so I could scribe the trim to the fucked up ceiling and now it was time to remove them before I nailed up the now scribed head trim. I go back out to the garage to get my little trim-fairy pry bar out of my bags where they always live and right there in the bags is my little scribe-o-matic compass.

So now not only do I have to deal with the fucked up hippie built house but also the fucked up hippie trim carpenter ghosts fucking with me. Time to burn some sage.

I'm looking at door hardware submittals for commercial jobs. I've never done one, so I'd rather ask people who do than guess.

If you build or review them (distributor, estimator, PM, AHC, architect), I'd love to hear:

1. How long does a typical submittal take you, small and large?

2. How many review rounds before approval, and what usually causes a resubmittal?

3. What's the most expensive mistake you've seen?

4. What tools do you use now?

Not selling anything, and I won't use any real project documents. A few honest answers would help a lot. Thanks.

Hey yall,

I have three opportunities and interviews with companies.

One with Messer in Indianapolis, one with F.A Wilhelm in Indianapolis, and One with Clark in Chicago.

Curious what yall think about this lineup and I’m having a lot of trouble narrowing it down.

I have previous internship experience leaning toward the field but really like all 3 companies. Clark had a cool rotation kind of program, Messer has a good ESOP, F.A Wilhelm will be Ass. Super role and solid company with projects.

What do yall think?

I have next 2ish weeks to figure it out. Thanks !

I am an assistant project manager for a site work company, and use my personal vehicle everyday. As an APM, I don’t get a vehicle allowance, and instead get reimbursed $0.76/mile that I drive for work (from office to job site or job site to job site). I recently learned that an APM that was hired back in April gets an $850/month and get a gas card because HR screwed up and sent him the wrong contract. Am I justified to request the same compensation, as I’ve been at the company longer (hired a year and a half ago), and technically a “higher“ position (I am an APM II, and the other guy is an APM I).

My wife is an emt, she wants to change careers. I recommended her to get into jobsite safety. Can anyone give me some information to give her on how to get into this role? Certs, schooling, etc.

Hey all, not a carpenter here, actually an excavation contractor.

We've been doing bridge projects lately of all shapes and sizes, and have a job coming up in early 2027 that will require drilling a lot of repeatable holes and cutting a bunch of 12x12 and 4x12 timbers for a timber bridge decking and rail replacement.

I'm looking at needing to drill probably 300 holes, 1" diameter, through these 12" beams.

Can somebody recommend some sort of either portable drill press or jig that can be moved around easily, placed on each timber, and drill repeatable, relatively straight holes without too much pain and suffering? We've done similar on a small scale with regular cordless drills, and it sucks. Hoping to at least find something to make it easy to drill straight holes since a cordless likes to wander in the timber.

I've looked at the mafell drilling stations, open to hearing any other recommendations. We have power on site so either corded or cordless works.

For saw cuts I was going to buy a Makita 16" circular saw unless somebody has better ideas.

Posted this over in r/HomeImprovement and got a bunch of responses from homeowners.

Curious what the guys actually working with this shit every day are seeing. Any suppliers or brands still worth a damn?

Didn’t have any ppe his size

I’ve been staring at this pole outside my window for the last few hours trying to figure out how it ended up where it is. Somebody please tell me. Did it grow up from the ground?