Technicians spend a lot of the day moving between homes. The clock has to follow them.
A technician may finish six calls in a day, each with its own drive, parts run and paperwork. Recording only a start and end of day shows total hours but nothing about which jobs were profitable. Recording each call lets the office see that a water heater swap quoted at three hours consistently takes four and a half.
Driving from one customer to the next is working time. Driving from the shop to the first call, when the technician reports to the shop first, also is. A technician who takes the van home and drives straight to the first call is a different case: under a federal law about employer vehicles, ordinary home-to-work travel in a company vehicle within normal commuting distance is generally not paid when there is an agreement and no extra work is required, such as loading parts. Some states disagree, so check where you operate.
A burst pipe at 10 p.m. is a premium job. Define on-call rotation, response time and call-out pay before the first emergency. Time spent waiting at home with no tight response requirement is usually not working time, but the time from answering the call through finishing the job is. Some states guarantee a minimum number of hours when an employee is called in, so record the call time and the start time separately.
Flat-rate pay, where a job pays a fixed number of hours regardless of the clock, is common in service trades. Under federal law, overtime is still owed for hours over 40 when the technician is a non-exempt employee, and the regular rate must include the flat-rate earnings. Example: a technician earns $1,260 from flat-rate jobs while working 48 hours. The regular rate is $26.25. The overtime premium owed is half of it times 8 hours, which is $105, on top of the $1,260.
Work on government projects may be subject to prevailing wage rules, which set a minimum hourly wage by trade and county and require certified payroll records. Keep public and private hours on separate job codes from the start.
Plumbers and HVAC technicians are licensed by states and, in some places, cities, usually in tiers such as apprentice, journeyman and master. Licensing sets who can pull permits and who must supervise apprentices, so keep each technician’s license number and expiry date on file.
For HVAC work, the EPA’s Section 608 rules require technicians who maintain, service, repair or dispose of equipment that could release refrigerant to hold Section 608 certification. In homes built before 1978, the EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule applies when work disturbs painted surfaces above small thresholds, which happens when plumbers open walls. The firm must be RRP certified and use a certified renovator.
Many shops pay technicians a flat rate per task or a commission on sales. That is legal, but overtime still applies. For piece-rate pay, the regular rate is the week’s total pay divided by total hours worked, and every hour over 40 earns an extra half of that rate.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Flat-rate earnings for the week | $1,450 |
| Total hours, including drive time and parts runs | 50 |
| Regular rate, $1,450 divided by 50 | $29.00 |
| Overtime premium, 10 hours at $14.50 | $145.00 |
| Total pay for the week | $1,595.00 |
If you only look at the flat-rate sheet, you will underpay every long week. The calculation needs every hour, which is why technicians should clock in when they start the first call, not when they arrive at the first house. Overtime calculator
| Months | Demand | Staffing move |
|---|---|---|
| June to August | Cooling failures and peak service calls | Extended hours and on-call rotation |
| September to October | Shoulder season | Maintenance agreements, training and vacations |
| December to February | Heating failures and frozen pipes | On-call rotation, stocked vans |
| March to May | Shoulder season | Tune-ups, replacements and hiring for summer |
Registered apprentices learn under a program approved by the Department of Labor or a state apprenticeship agency, with a progressive wage scale and a required ratio of apprentices to journeyworkers. On Davis-Bacon and other prevailing wage jobs, you may pay the lower apprentice rate only to apprentices registered in an approved program, and only within the allowed ratio. Anyone else doing the work must be paid the journeyworker rate for the classification.
Record which classification each person worked under on each job and day. That is what certified payroll needs, and it protects you if an audit asks why an apprentice was paid less.
As working time under the job it supports, or under a general shop code if it served several calls.
Wage minimums can vary under a registered apprenticeship, but hours are still tracked the same way.
Yes, a phone app works well, provided each call is entered as it happens and not reconstructed on Friday.
Yes, if they service equipment that can release refrigerant. The EPA’s Section 608 rules require certification by type of equipment, and the certification does not expire.
Under the federal Employee Commuting Flexibility Act, normal commuting in a company vehicle can be unpaid if it is within the normal commuting area and the employer and employee have agreed to it. Drives between calls during the day are paid.
Divide total weekly pay by total hours worked to get the regular rate. Pay an additional half of that rate for every hour over 40.
The word plumber comes from the Latin plumbum, meaning lead, which is also why lead’s chemical symbol is Pb. Roman pipes were often made of it.
What counts as paid travel
When waiting counts as work
Weekly overtime math
Book a demo and we will set up a technician route with call-level time and an on-call rotation.
This page is general information, not legal, payroll or tax advice. Rules differ by state, city and contract, and they change. Check with a qualified professional before you act. Numbers in examples are made up.