7 Smart Ways to Set Up Your Plumbing Van

Setting Up Your Plumbing Truck: 7 Practices To Follow!

Amidst a busy field service schedule, organizing your plumbing truck may seem unimportant. But a neat, tidy, and well-organized plumbing van delivers productivity, efficient operations, and even safety. Pulling up in between the job and spending twenty minutes searching for the tools or spares to complete a job is unprofessional. It could even have serious implications during emergency jobs, where every minute of delay means more water damage.
Here are seven tips to keep your plumbing truck organized in the middle of a busy schedule.

1. Have a good shelving system

 Customize the interiors of the van with a good shelving system. Have compartments on every sidewall, and bins on the floor. Have enough compartments to segregate different tools, equipment, and spares. Color code the compartments and bins as required, and label each item.
Leave enough floor space when setting up the shelves. Bulky items such as water heaters and other appliances take up most of the floor space.

2. Stock the Basics

Make sure the plumbing van always carries the basic tools of the trade.
Standard safety gear includes gloves, safety glasses, and knee pads. Carry a basic first-aid kit, complete with gauze, antiseptics, and other essential aids.
Every plumber requires a pencil, sharpie, sandpaper, tape measure, and a pocket level. They also need solder flux, voltmeter, voltage tester, and drain machine.
Drills, cordless saws, and press guns are must-have power tools for a plumber. Likewise, always carry basic hand tools such as tube cutters, torch, fitting brush, Allen Wrench Set, Cable Saw, and hammer.

3. Be Flexible

Carrying all the tools of the trade everywhere means moving around with an overloaded vehicle. Carry the basic items required, plus the items required for the day’s job.
Place the items in an order. Keep the most used tools and spares in the most accessible location.
Related Reading: 5 Ideas to Successfully Transform Your Field Service Business

4. Enhance the Van with the Right accessories

A choice of accessories for the van makes the plumbing van more ergonomic and safe. 

• Use wall and ceiling liners to maintain the interior and dampen the noise of rattling tools
• Invest in anti-slip floor mats to prevent slippage
• Add tap-activated lights on the interior of the van doors, for easy visibility during nights and inclement weather

5. Clean out the van regularly

Junk and unwanted things accumulate inside your plumbing van. Your field plumber always seeks to fix the issue and reach the next destination. Clean out the truck at the end of every single day. Throw away the waste, and restock the van for the next day’s work. Gather the spare parts and materials for a specific job in a box, to make it easy to put it away after the job.
Have a schedule for daily, weekly, and monthly clean-outs. Involve the team for weekly and monthly clean-outs. Weekly clean-outs could be a more comprehensive version of the daily clean-out. It may include interior and exterior washing, replenishing the first aid kit, checking the fire extinguisher, and so on. The monthly cleanout could include thorough vehicle inspection and a deep level of cleaning.
Install a low-profile trash can, trash bags, sanitizing wipes, and a duster to manage any messes as they occur.

6. Maintain the Truck

Break down of the van can lead to hold-ups, delays, loss of credibility, and loss of business.
Co-opt the van maintenance to the weekly and monthly schedules. Take the van for regular servicing. Check the pressure on tires, oil levels and other vital statistics every week. Refuel the van well before the gauge nears empty.
A well-maintained vehicle rarely breaks down. Make oil changes on time. Rotate tires at the recommended intervals, and replace worn-out tires fast to pre-empt a flat tire.

7. Invest in Inventory Management Suite

A good inventory management suite tracks the consumption of spares. It syncs with the field management suite and the enterprise CRM suite to forecast demand. An automated system even re-orders by itself.
A cloud-based mobile app linked to your field management suite and CRM integrates and streamlines all your work. A field service management suite like ReachOut facilitates easy tracking of work orders, real-time collaboration with the back office, and identifies your way to the next client. The automated invoices, work orders, and other reports help to prevent a pile of messy papers occupying the front passenger seat of your plumbing van.
Related Reading: How Standardized Work Orders Can Boost the Growth of Your Plumbing Business
An unorganized truck reflects on the reputation of your field service business. A well-maintained and neatly kept plumbing van lends a professional air to your business, improves the productivity and efficiency of your plumbing staff, and saves your cost and time. To know more about how ReachOut can enhance your field service management, talk to our expert.