©Red Barn Media Group 2024
Plumbing Hacks and Plumbing Professional Discussions (PH&PPD) is a group that was founded on Facebook back in early 2012 when the platform first started the groups feature & is the original Plumbing group on Facebook. This private/closed Facebook group, created primarily to make fun of jobs & Hacked repairs, quickly became a group of trade specific professionals who shared an intense passion for the plumbing industry and began expanding discussions into every facet of the trade from application, training, tips, tricks, new tools, new products, & techniques evolving itself into the Hack Free Nation (HFN). Even with a highly selective screening process for entry into the group, we've experienced consistent growth & are growing daily. The current number of members is in excess of 55,000 made up from members all around the globe, but primarily North America.
What started as a joke, quickly became one of the most visited and active groups on Facebook. The intense activity level prompted the PH&PPD leadership team to meet up, primarily to meet some of the people we'd been interacting with on Social media. but also to just hang out & talk with each other in person about the trade we all love so much.
At our 1st meet, we all agreed that as amazing as the group was, that an in-person event with other passionate & industry focused people was definitely the way to proceed! Shortly after that 1st meet up, we announced our 1st annual PH&PPD Conference & Trade Show. The response from the group was again overwhelmingly in agreement. The question of whether or not having a meet-up was the right thing to do, was answered soundly by the number of members & vendors that decided to join us. The meet ups have continued to evolve over the years, based on membership feedback. We now offer business coaching classes, tech classes, & training opportunities (professional & peer), along with the trade show.
We believe that because of the organic & passionate nature of our participants that what's developed so far is truly unique. These factors have made the decisions to continue doing it year over year, growing bigger & bigger each year, an easy one. This year we are launching our 10th Annual HFN Conference & Trade Show.
What makes Plumbing Hacks so special is the camaraderie shared with people from every facet of our industry. From business owners to apprentices, the Plumbers, Fitters, Welders, Drain Cleaners, Boiler Installers, Hydronic H/C, Pipe Rehab, in both the Service Side, Retro-Fit & New Construction, with both Union & Non-Union now have a direct path for open discussion to wholesaler distribution partners, tooling & material manufacturers, code officials, & engineers, etc.., where ideas, opinions, stories & experiences are openly shared & discussed. Countless relationships have been fostered & matured over the years between the partnerships formed out of the group interactions, that just don't seem obtainable elsewhere or by other means. The true friendships, amazing relationships & enhanced partnerships formed are what have truly made this group into what it is today & will continue to change the industry as we know it forever.
Our conference & tradeshow currently a four day every year in May on the beautiful St Pete Beach Florida. It begins with a meet & greet, followed by two days of classes & training opportunities & concludes with a trade show. What makes the event different than so many others are the relationships that are able to be built. Unlike other larger events, this isn’t the cattle herding event that most major shows have become, vendors have come to expect & participants have become somewhat complacent with, this event is really about building the relationship & rapport with other contractors/partners that are like-minded.
These partnerships include those vendors that are willing to help by going above & beyond the sale & are truly seeking to support the trade & their trade partners. We’ve stayed very selective on who we allow into this inner circle of fellowship as far as vendors are concerned, almost all of which have returned year over year.
You won’t find a better conference & trade show out there. Don’t take our word for it, ask our members.
©Red Barn Media Group 2024