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Plumb Intelligence

Playbook · Plumbing contractors

The plumber playbook

A water-heater permit is a sale your competitor already closed. But every foundation poured in Arizona has a plumber roughed into it first — and when the building permit appears, that contract is often still open. New construction, additions, TIs: that’s the plumbing pipeline in public record form, tied to the builder who needs you. This guide is how to work it.

Set up in a few minutes; your first digest lands the next morning at 7 AM.

The daily loop

  1. 1

    Search the slab, not the service call

    Set your ZIPs, then build your primary saved search on new construction — the rough-in pipeline — and a second on remodels & additions for repipe-scale interior work. The plumbing lens itself is your market mirror: read it to see the trade’s activity, not to chase closed jobs.

  2. 2

    Find the builders who pour on repeat

    Rough-in is won by relationship, and relationships scale with builder volume. The leaderboards rank the most active builders in your ZIPs; a production builder’s new section is a rough-in contract multiplied by every lot in it.

    TipUnder-slab is the first trade in — which means the plumbing decision is made earlier than any other trade’s. Watch the applied stage; that’s your bid window.

  3. 3

    Vet the GC’s license before your crew’s under their slab

    Every contractor profile shows AZ ROC license status, classification, disciplinary history, and recent volume on a match-confidence badge. A GC with a clean record and climbing pace is a book-builder; a lapsed license is a lien story you can skip.

  4. 4

    Book your GCs and your rivals

    My Book watches your builder relationships and the plumbing shops you compete with. Pace climbing, gone quiet, license lapsing — the local plumbing market, mapped and refreshed daily.

Aim it right

Point your search at the work that needs a plumber

Match the search to the plumbing book you’re building.

If you want…Chase the…
Production rough-inTract sections and new SFR“new single family homes in my zips”
Custom rough-inHigh-value new builds“new custom homes over $800k”
Remodel & repipe-scale interiorAdditions and major remodels“remodels and additions over $75k in my zips”
Commercial & TIRestaurant and medical TIs — plumbing-heavy by design“commercial permits over $250k in Tempe”
Competitive intelThe trade’s own activity“the busiest plumbing contractors this year”

Searches you can paste straight in

Type it in plain English — the search bar parses the trade, the ZIPs, the dollar floor, and the date window for you.

“new single family homes in my zips”

Every new home starting in your territory — each one an under-slab and top-out contract tied to a builder.

“remodels and additions over $75k in my zips”

Interior work big enough to move fixtures and open walls — repipe-scale jobs with a GC attached.

“the busiest plumbing contractors this year”

Who’s winning the trade’s volume in your market — your competitive map.

What to look for

The signals that separate a call from a waste of a call

Lifecycle stage
Plumbing is the first trade under the slab, so its contract closes earliest. “Applied” is your bid window; by “issued,” the rough-in may already be spoken for.
Builder velocity
A builder’s climbing permit count is next quarter’s rough-in volume. The leaderboard finds them before their next section opens.
Work class
New construction, addition, or TI — each is a different plumbing scope. The class tells you what you’re pricing before you call.
GC license & record
Your crew’s work gets buried in their slab. Make sure the license is active and the record is clean first.

Power moves

Once you’re past the basics

Bid at application, not issue

Because plumbing closes first, the applied stage matters more to you than to any other trade. The estimated issue date tells you how fast to move.

Adopt three builders

The three most active builders in your ZIPs, in My Book. Each alert is a section of rough-ins, not a single job.

Watch restaurant and medical TIs

The most plumbing-dense commercial work there is. A TI search over your commercial ZIPs catches them as they file.

Mine a rival’s book

A competitor’s profile shows which builders they serve and at what pace. When they slow, those builders take calls.

Separate new-build and remodel digests

Different crews, different bids — run them as separate saved searches so each morning email is pre-sorted.

What you’ll see on every lead

The permit

Type, work class, lifecycle stage, and declared value — or a clearly-labeled estimate when the city doesn’t report one.

The GC/builder

AZ ROC license, status, classification, disciplinary flags, recent volume — on a match-confidence badge.

The property

Parcel-matched address and owner of record.

Freshness

Refreshed daily from each city’s feed.

Straight about the data

What we won’t oversell

  • The honest limit: a water-heater or repipe permit is usually pulled by the winning plumber — that’s your market mirror, not your lead list. The open contracts live upstream in building permits.
  • Some cities publish permits without a contractor field — Gilbert, Goodyear, Chandler, and Queen Creek name no contractor — so competitor tracking is thinner there.
  • A contractor is resolved on about 39% of all permits and about 61% of the ones that name a contractor — every link shows its confidence.

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