Concrete Is Booked Thursday and Inspection Opens Monday
The underground is holding test and ready to cover, the pump truck is scheduled, and the inspector's first open slot is after the pour date.
No other trade's inspection comes between a general contractor and a concrete pour, so the whole slab schedule pushes against one plumbing sign off. Drywall, paint, and tile get inspected while the work is still visible and fixable. Plumbing gets inspected at the one moment when the next step makes the work permanent, which is why the underground phase generates standby time and buried liability that no other scope on the job produces.
The size of it
You either pay a full crew at burdened cost to wait on site for an inspection window, or you let uninspected pipe go under a slab with nothing but memory to defend it. Neither one gets a cost code, so underground looks like a cheap phase right up until the sawcut.
Your underground is the only inspection between the GC and a slab pour, and you control neither side of it. Code requires the DWV and water piping to hold a test, typically 10 feet of head on the drainage system, and to pass inspection before any of it is concealed. Concrete crews, pump trucks, and finishers get booked days out, and the pour date is set by the GC's schedule, never by the inspector's calendar. If the first available slot falls after the pour, either the date slides and every trade on the job looks at you, or the GC covers uninspected pipe and you own everything under that slab with no record of what went in. Once concrete is over it, moving a closet flange is a sawcut and a demo crew.
Three moves, in order
Step 06: Project management
Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them.
What else costs plumbing contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What plumbing owners ask
Who pays for plumbing crew standby when the underground inspection delays the slab?
The underground is holding test and ready to cover, the pump truck is scheduled, and the inspector's first open slot is after the pour date.
What does it cost?
You either pay a full crew at burdened cost to wait on site for an inspection window, or you let uninspected pipe go under a slab with nothing but memory to defend it. Neither one gets a cost code, so underground looks like a cheap phase right up until the sawcut.
What do I do first?
Call for the underground inspection the day the test goes on, not the day the piping is finished, and put the requested date in writing to the superintendent.
What are plumbing contractors supposed to be making?
Plumbing runs 25% gross margin, 16% overhead and 9% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 2 points above it. The CFOS target is 12.5%.
Which part of the system fixes it?
The step is number 06, project management. Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them. It comes from chapter 6 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for plumbing contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.