Folks,
I am hoping to relocate to San Diego with my wife and two girls this summer and get back into finish carpentry. I don’t want to get into an online resume here, but my background is in high-end wooden boatbuilding, with a couple detours for the last five years (College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program and a four year gig teaching woodworking…)
My wife, though supportive of my desire to go back to being a craftsman, rather than a teacher, is justifiably concerned about simply making it. Her two main concerns are what my wages will be and having health insurance for the family.
I keep telling her not to worry, that it will be okay after the first year or so.
Anyone from San Diego a regular here? Can you give me an idea of what wages would be? Will I even be able to find a company that provides benefits? I am capable of the highest-end work, have a constant desire to learn more, get faster and better. I am not fully tooled, but it’s close… I realize that my lack of residential experience will mean I have to start low and work up.
How fast can I expect that to happen? Say I found a great company that was a good fit, and I was the best and most motivated apprentice they ever had. How fast could I expect raises, etc? There’s nothing I want more than to make this work.
My brother is a carpenter and architecture student there, and he works for an archy doing both office work and general carpentry. He has no benefits, but also has no kids and no wife. He does, however, have many connections for interesting side jobs. I feel the need at first to find steady work and health care, though, to make the move less stressful on the wife…
I guess I’m curious if there are any locals here, and what their experiences have been. I know Joe Wood is from SD…
Sorry to ramble.
-Kit
Replies
Kit,
I'll be interested to hear what you find out, since we are looking at San Diego as well, within the next 3 years, if not sooner.
All I keep hearing is that the cost of living there is very high...
Have you considered going back into the boat-building field?
Please be very careful before you move to San Diego! When I lived there, I needed to hire some machinists. I found a lot of machinists who had moved from the East and the Midwest expecting to find jobs at their previous wages or even highter because the cost of living was higher. Unfortunately, there were some many machinists looking for work, the prevailing wages were lower than they were paid previously. I felt really sorry for these guys who had moved their families and could not find a job with a "living" wage.
Before you make the same mistake, please make sure that you can find a position at a wage that is reasonable relative to the actual cost of living in San Diego...don't assume the prevailing wage is good.
Bill
Kit,
I live in San Diego and it's bloody expensive. In addition the median home prices that recently topped $530,000, but are probably about to peak, we have just about the highest gasoline prices in the U.S. (a gallon of regular unleaded just dropped to $2.35 from about $2.55 this week. Diesel is running about $2.45). It's not uncommon for one bedroom apartments to start at $900 per month, and there's been a recent frenzy to convert apartment complexes into condos, with prices starting in the high $200,000s for a unit with under 1,000 sq ft - converting apartments to condos could be a temporary source of carpentry jobs.
I'm semi-retired, teaching and making furniture, so I can't really comment to wages in the building trades.
Good luck,
-Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
Check out a recent article in Fortune (or was it Smart Money) on the housing market with a page or so focussed on San Diego. One reason housing is so expensive in SD is that it is bounded on four sides by the ocean, a military base, Mexico and the desert, so there has been relatively little construction there given the population, cost of buying an existing home and such. I'm just summarizing what the article said. I have no idea about the SD employment situation.
One other thing to know - it was considered one of the most over-valued real estate markets in the country, so buying a home there woudl be a risky proposition. It could be like LA when the last LA housing boom went bust and prices dropped by something like 29% there. Similar in the Bay Area where someone I know had to buy in at the peak got relocated again by his company after the bust (this was in the 1980s or so). He lost thousands on his house. Fortune warns that SD (and most of CA) is ripe for that sort of thing again. Of course, various folks have been warning that since 1999 or so.
Tom
I have an aunt who has lived in SD for some time, it is definitely a neat place.
Salary dot com, for Carpenter III reports a median of $45.7K
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layoutscripts/swzl_compresult.asp?zipcode=&metrocode=155&statecode=CA&state=California&metro=San+Diego&city=&geo=San+Diego%2C+CA&jobtitle=Carpenter+III&search=&narrowdesc=Construction+and+Installation&narrowcode=SC02&r=salswz_swzttsbtn_psr&p=&s=salary&geocode=&jobcode=SC16000012
Using Salary's Cost of Living wizard, going from Vegas to SD is a $14.8K hit on disposable income (32% more expensive than LV).
Bankrate dot com says hte difference is 27%, which is not much better.
Which is not to say you couldn't find place like out to El Centro (which some of the SD natives refer to as "el centro de nada" the center of nothing).
Hope that helps some.
Capn and everyone else,
Thanks for the feedback so far. Not really making me feel any better, but it's a good reality check. Really, I think we need to go down there and look at real estate, school districts, and jobs for me... It's hard to do when you work full time, though. We are going to make a pretty good sum when we sell our house here, and we are going to look for a place along with my brother. Something that we can do an addition to or otherwise expand.
We are planning on doing some research over Christmas break, and I need to sic my brother on it in a more serious manner.
I'd still like to hear more from anyone else.
Thanks,
-KitTechnique is proof of your seriousness. - Wallace Stevens
research over Christmas break
Which is a wonderful time to visit SD, unless you are nostalgic for snow and winter weather. (It's a bit fun to tease the natives, who are usually under the impression that they are freezing, in weather that hardly rates long sleeves elsewhere . . . )Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I wouldn't get too bubbly about the fine weather there:
Christmas Day, 1967; I was on duty aboard a U. S. Navy Cruiser moored at the 42nd St. Naval Station....came out on the quarterdeck for morning quarters to find an inch deep dusting of snow over everything....
T'was a memorable and beautiful sight....and I believe it was a first in over a century....
and I believe it was a first in over a century
That's the way the Houston types talk about the last snow there <g>
It can be culture shock for folks who are used to salted roads for a quarter of the year. A "beater" car is the one you take through SD traffic to get to work <g>.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Man was that '67!!??I remember walking to school in the snow one day ,1st grade, about that time and I can still see my best freind in tears being driven by Mom as she wouldn't let him walk in the terrible 1/2" of snow.That was in Oceanside.W
VP,
Don't know about now, but a few years ago I spent a year in Northpark. Had a really nice 3BR with pool and garage for $700/mon. About 15 mins from everywhere.
El Centro is just 40 miles south of my hometown. If you don't want to commute for 2 hours, there are a lot of nice lttle towns within an hour of the beach headed east on I-8. Note that it is a hours drive from EC west to the next town.
Of course you can always find a place in Ocotillo (30min west of EC) for $300 a month and haul your own water. And shade. And add $300/mon for AC. . . In January!
SamT
The weather here is horrible. The evil sun shines in my window all day and blanks out my computer screen with awful glare. Even if we are promised a nice storm, it arrives a day late and half strength. [The Joe Lazura effect.] It is so bad that it can even be raining and the stupid sun is still shining and wiping out my computer's TV set thing.
We are proud of having the highest gasoline prices in the nation. [I cheat and drive to Phoenix to fill up.] The housing prices are ridiculous but those are the cheapo McMansions. Try Imperial Beach or Logan Heights for lower cost.
I can't help you with find woodworking wages but don't think such things are much appreciated here. The street are full of chuckholes since the money is spent of the Chargers stadium. And the potholes represent money spent otherwise of the Padres new ballpark. Now they want to build a new library without any books.
The mayor's race was between a corrupt incumbent and a corrupt challenger. Both left their retirement funds about a billion dollars underfunded. At least we could write in a blond lady surfer. Ask me about the ticket guarantee.
~Peter
Everyday, cabinet level employees of the Bush regime are quitting in disgust over Bush's refusal to pardon the incarcerated Martha Stewart. The latest is Ms. Rice who is giving up her National Security Advisor position.
Hey 'pooch, get your hands on the names of some of the contractors in SD, call them, and ask what they pay and how much they're looking for carpenters. You can find contractors just by googling for 'building and remodeling contractor San Diego' or something like that. If they need people they will be happy to hear from you and will talk about the wages and benefits they have to lure you with.
I don't know SD specifically but we moved from the Bay Area a while back and the cost of housing is thru the roof. We could not have afforded to buy the house we sold. We could not have lived on our street but for the fact that we moved there when it was cheap. I do think the market will peak there shortly and that's one reason we left... get while it's good. If you do move there I would rent for a while and see what happens.
Hard to beat those beaches. In norcal you never go in the water.
How about Colorado, 200,000 San Diego transplants, can't be wrong!
I live in north san diego county in a rural town called Fallbrook, just east of oceanside. When I moved here from orange county(50 miles north) 7 years ago I thought that I could meld into the hardwood floor industry here easily because of the large expensive homes in la jolla, del mar and rancho santa fe. It did not happen nor would i have wanted it to. The pay is 30% less than in orange county. It is like moving to another state, yet the good wages are just 25-50 miles north. There is a very strong hispanic influence in san diego county; they have fully absorbed the construction trades here and with that the good wages. Also the traffic is so bad that many tradesmen will leave there homes inland to work on the coast at 4:30 am to beat the traffic. They will hang out in a coffee shop until work starts. Consider living in north san diego and working in orange county. There is no traffic going or coming back home. I leave at 5:45 and get to newport beach at 7:00 or less. We stop work at 3 and get home by 4:15 or earlier. It is a wage earners market there. Qualified workers are in high demand for the million dollar home market. People that live in the north coastal cities of san diego get to newport in 45 minutes. There is so much money in the beach cities of orange county that you could easily sell your wares there. GW
San Diego is a very affluent area.
But TOOOOO many people
Something like 3,000,000 last I heard
Thanks again you guys for the good info...I'm gonna try bumping this again.So, no one who posted is actually a working carpenter. Greg, it sounded like you did floors? Pm22 teaches and builds furniture.I figured I would just cold call some places, maybe hit a few lumber suppliers nd find out who does the really nice houses,etc. I have a pretty good resume with pictures of past work, amybe I'll pass a few out.-Kit
Technique is proof of your seriousness. - Wallace Stevens
VP,Here's my take. 1st don't let any opinions get in the way of your dream. Things have a way of working out when you try. But be prepared. Yes prices are high, traffic is bad, but there is plenty of room for talented carpenters. Be flexible. I've been in and out of the building trades in SD Co. for 20 years and find that most good crews do it all, not just finish work, not just framing. Stairbuilders and the like are specialty trades but the crews I really liked we did foundations to roof to kitchen cabinets and everything in between. Recently I've been concentrating on finding a full time finish carpenter job,in town, (Escondido) not easy. On wages: I found when applying at some with my level of experience and tools I can demand $20hr no problem. Maybe $25hr if I fill a specific need, more down the road. I've been incredibly picky saying upon interviews "I'm not driving more than 10 miles" Sounds ridiculus but more that that can add 2 hour commute to your day. I-15 at rush hour will take 1 1/2 hours,( each way so 3 per day..that's 15 hrs a week driving!) Escondido to Del Mar. That definatly has to be considered. Oddly it seems most crews working in Esco. are from Lemon Grove and most working in Lemon Grove are from Esco.!!! The freeways are jammed with carpenters driving in opposite directions!!!<G> Bottom line don't expect to be close to work for more than one job at a time and if you do your lucky!!You'll do fine though, good work is appreciatted and there is definatly $$$$ in SD.Regards,W
Whatrix,
Wow! Thanks for the good vibes. I would definitely be interested in a crew that does it all, though if I never wielded a shovel for the rest of my life I'd be happy.
My first carpentry job was in Seattle in 96-97, one of the rainiest years on record. I believe we had almost three months with continuous rain or snow. I spent a couple weeks shoveling out a foundation for an addition in the pouring rain, after spending three days demoing a slab that had old iron pipe in it instead of rebar and wheelbarrowing the sh*t out. My hands and back have never been the same...
Finish work is where my current talents lie, but on that Seattle job I did some framing, too. I like the physical demand of it, and the speed, and the big hammers...
Anyway, thanks for the good words. I'll be looking this Spring.
-Kit
Technique is proof of your seriousness. - Wallace Stevens