A- No body cares about you…its about the innocent people you let into your home as well as the fact that water main breaks are not bizarre events in San Diego or anywhere. There are no backflow preventors on houses and the domestic water in your home will go back into the mains.

B- Now that doctors and lawyers are a dime a dozen all of us, including you, should be very conscious of the need to remain relevant. We are all much closer to being underemployed and undervalued than we realise.

C- I hope your personality in person is not as ugly as your online one.

Yes that is a good point about licensing, you do need 5 years in a trade (that is not very long in my opinion). So yes not anyone can become a contractor only people with relative experience. I see that as a good thing. The bar for getting a contractors lic. in CA is very low and the quality of the work shows, even after the fact that you can get away with just about anything here as we have no freezing to destroy pipes.

I’ve worked overseas. We build things different here, better in my opinion, and foreigners are not familiar with our building materials and codes. Much of the work done by Eastern Europeans just off the boat I have witnessed has been or will have to be torn out and redone.

birmingplumb- I’ve spent some time with your younger son, he’s awesome. You must be a great dad and a great guy.