Plumbing refers to the mechanisms and activities involved primarily in the transportation, distribution and processing of water. Plumbing services can be described as any activity involved within those operations, whether installation, repairs or maintenance. The typical view of someone who carries out these activities is a plumber. A plumber is someone who works commercially, but generally does small scale jobs for households and small businesses. Plumbers do need to be accredited in order to work in their field, but generally do not require a high qualification. With regards to installation, plumbers generally deal with tasks such as installing taps, overflow valves, geysers, piping, drainage etc. and with regards to repairs and maintenance they can be required to replace any number of damaged or faulty parts, as well as sealing leaks and clearing blockages.
On a larger scale of plumbing services there is hydraulic engineering. Although not typically associated with the word plumbing, Hydraulic engineering is just that, only on a bigger scale. Hydraulic Engineers need to be highly qualified and specialised as well as licensed to do any hydraulic related work. Often hydraulics is misinterpreted as being a field that deals solely with hydraulic lifting and mechanics, but hydraulics is in fact the study of all fluids and fluid systems including rain water, rivers, plumbing etc. Most plumbing work that is carried out on a large scale, such as public works and public infrastructure generally makes use of hydraulic engineers, and the services they provide can vary from designing water systems to installing and maintaining them.
Plumbing services provide a large number of job and business opportunities in the economy, since people with various levels of qualification can enter the field and almost every single person requires plumbing services at one point or another. As a result of this most plumbers start their own businesses and the majority of plumbing service businesses around the world are small enterprises. In most countries plumbers are required to be accredited, either by law or by some regulatory body. The reasoning behind such accreditation is to avoid damage and injury that can arise due to negligence as well as for insurance purposes. Insurance companies are not likely to pay out when damage is caused as a result of negligent work by an unaccredited plumber.
Like most service rendering enterprises plumbers make most of their revenue from labour and only a small fraction from the actual products which they sell and install. Since any number of things can go wrong in a plumbing system at any given time, many plumbing services operate a twenty four hour emergency service. After hour services are however highly expensive, but their necessity justifies their price.
In recent years plumbers have also shifted their focus and services towards better conservation of water, electricity and the preservation of the environment. As the world has become more aware of the impact their activities have on the environment, plumbers are being hired to help people implement systems that conserve water and minimise consumption. These plumbing activities include the installation of rain capture systems which catch rain water from roof tops and stores it for later use, (usually in the garden) the installation of solar heated geysers, water filtration systems, and other efforts to reduce the negative environmental impact.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articleculture.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
