Slow season, bad economy forcing many tradesmen to get creative to survive

With new home construction in the Tooele Valley falling off drastically, small contractors are being forced to scramble — and get creative — to find enough work to survive.

Ed Raddon, who owns Tuff Country Concrete in Tooele with his sons Travis and Derrick, said his business is down 60 percent from normal levels this winter.

“Last year around this time we were swamped with work, but during the last six months it has been hard to find work,” he said. “Last year we had eight or nine contractors working with us, but we’re down to two. Right now is the worst period I’ve seen for us. The new home construction market has dropped to almost zero, and a lot of contractors are also going bankrupt.”

Kim Newbold, owner of Newbold Masonry Construction, said the past six months have been dismal for contractors.

“The volume of my calls has slowed down because of the economy, especially over the past six months,” Newbold said. “I did a lot of roofing, which included refeeding roofs, and concrete work last year.”

On the bright side, Newbold said he is currently in the negotiating stage of building a house in Grantsville, which would be a major project.

“I also kept somewhat busy over Christmastime doing a bathroom remodel and more roofing and concrete, and I’m doing some repairing and upgrading here and there,” he said. “I’m also doing little jobs like fencing and things at home when I can. I have a few guys that help me when I need help, but I did very little subcontracting last year because most of the stuff was able to be done myself.”

John Russell, owner of the Tooele-based Copper Creek Construction Inc., which specializes in all aspects of residential construction, said that although he is keeping his business of almost 12 years alive, he also has felt the pressures of a down housing market.

“I saw a vast decline in new home construction and construction of upper-end projects at the end of last year, so I’ve gotten into remodeling and working on basements,” he said. “I’m taking on tile and basement jobs and carport conversions into garages. Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of my work from referrals that come from other satisfied customers.”

Scott Turner, who owns JRock Builders in Tooele with his sister Autumn, said he has been branching out into non-typical areas of work.

“The demand for concrete has dropped off, and I just built a spec house that I haven’t been able to sell,” he said. “Since there hasn’t been a lot of homebuilding, a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing is basement finish and other stuff that I normally wouldn’t do. Sometimes you have to do stuff you don’t want to because it’s where the money is, and I’m also down to doing a lot of the work myself due to the lack of jobs. Things are pretty slow now, and I hope we can weather through it all.”

Dave Zuckerman, owner of All Types Plumbing in Tooele, said jobs are much harder to come by now than six months ago, though winter is typically a slow season for him.

“It’s hard to tell if the slow amount of work is all because of the recession, or if it also has to do with the time of year,” Zuckerman said. “December, January and February are normally our slow times of the year.”

Zuckerman said his jobs have been varied but haven’t involved homebuilding lately.

“We worked a lot with heating yesterday because peoples’ furnaces were breaking down, but today we’ve been getting several calls for plumbing,” Zuckerman said.

Lance Pooler, master electrician and owner of 4Megawatts Electric in Tooele, said that although work has been slower than usual this time of year, he has still been performing inspections, upgrades and remodels for different electrical projects countywide. Pooler started his business only last year and said he’s keeping busy this winter.

“I have probably done 40 to 50 jobs since October,” he said. “I do electrical work for a variety of commercial, residential and industrial projects.”

Jeff McNeill, owner of the Grantsville-based McNeill and Sons Construction, said his experience is what has kept him busier than other contractors during this down time.

“I’ve been doing contract work for 27 years, so I have a lot more experience and know how to plan for slow times,” he said. “Because I’m a general contractor, I’m also more versatile and can shift around to do a little bit of everything. The specialty contractors, such as the guys who only do framing, drywall or only one other thing, are the ones who will be hurting more.”

McNeill said that although work is indeed slower for him now than it was this time last year, the current times are no different than the slowdown he experienced in the early ’80s and late ’90s.

McNeill also said that recently he’s had to leave Tooele County for jobs that pop up.

“The work demand has shifted from new residential to commercial and existing remodels, so now I have to travel more to get to where the work is,” he said. “I’ve traveled all around the state for work, even as far as St. George. However, it’s not that unusual to travel around the state for commercial work, which is still doing well right now.”

For most small contractors, however, spring can’t get here soon enough, even if a true housing market rebound could still be months away.

“Every year we get a lot of calls in the spring, and typically we’ll be booked in the summer,” Newbold said. “I’m hoping we’ll have a handful of jobs by the time spring picks back up.”

Raddon said despite the tough times, he is also optimistic the market will pick back up.

“I really hope it turns around this year and things get busier,” he said. “Some people are saying it will get busy again in the next two or three months, and some are saying by the end of 2009. I’d like to get back up to being 80 percent busy instead of 40 percent.”

Doug Radunich: dougrad@tooeletranscript.com