Ruben Cutts
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I think the majority would be.
If I was to say there were 2,000 to 3,000 products here in the branch, I would suspect at least 80% of them would have some type of component that's petroleum-based.
Petroleum, we don't just build it, we build with it.
And for plumbing, it is absolutely essential.
We rely on it.
There are alternatives, but they are more expensive, and we don't use them like we used to.
Here you've got metal pipework, which is obviously copper.
It's a commodity product, and especially over the last 12 months, it's been very volatile, and the price has increased considerably.
If we just walk the shelves a little, we've seen the fittings over here, but here is glues and solvents and silicons, which are all petroleum-based as well.
So it's not just the actual pipework.
There are a whole lot of different compounds to seal things together.
Even the rubber gloves there that we have to wear sometimes when we're doing the...
the jobs that are a little bit more nasty.
Then even with our, we've got, I'm holding a copper fitting in my hand here, which is a press fitting.
So rather than welding it like we used to back in the day.
This is a press fitting, so it's crimped and we've got an O-ring there.
So even though that's a metal fitting, we've still got petroleum-based product included in the fitting.
But there's all sorts of fittings, fastenings, there's downpipe and spouting, so it's not just the pipework.