Former Plumber, now doing clothing. Wants feedback

[kneedz]

Hello all,
Former plumber when in military (and some time as grunt apprentice on land). Mostly familiar with vacuum systems on ships and home plumbing stuff, went more the carpenter route though for profession.

Now I mess around with designing clothing for workwear company called Woodland Workwear. We install a built in kneepad in our garments (patented it in fact) and have had success in other fields like food distribution (Frito Lay, Kellogg etc...) and utility and power generation (Wind technicians electricians etc..) as well as through uniform service companies (Aramark, Cintas G &K etc...).

Now we are making a push to get back to our roots and design and make clothing specifically for certain fields of the workforce, including plumbers.
What I hope to do is get some good feedback from everyone out there about what you wear now for clothing/knee protection. What you like, what you don't etc... Bonus for those out there that have tried out our line of products.

Coming from the trades I feel like we have a really good product to offer, but before we roll out any new production lines I want to know if there are any features in clothing that plumbers specifically are looking for, or clothing everyone is wearing now. Just saying Carhartt carpenters don't cut it, we already make a carpenter pant that (I think) is much better, not just for the built in gel kneepad, but the fact we still use American fabric and care what our wearers say. So if anyone has some really cool ideas on how to make something for plumbers that is new, exciting, or just down right functional, I want to hear about it. Looking forward to the input and reading through the other usefull posts!

 

[Chris]

Haven't tried your brand but I wear a lot of wrangler jeans because the denim is so much thicker so they last, I only wish the waist sat a bit higher to get rid of plumbers crack.

 

[kneedz]

Haven't tried your brand but I wear a lot of wrangler jeans because the denim is so much thicker so they last, I only wish the waist sat a bit higher to get rid of plumbers crack.

That's funny, the dreaded plumbers crack, been there for sure. Some of our newer lines we actually "tilted" the pant so that the waist in front sits lower than the back. This makes it so the back sits higher, thus eliminating the crack problem. Just say no I'm told.

If you ever feel that you'd like to try ours, we'll give you a discount. Just put "Plumbing forums" in the comment section and we'll give you a discount, and free shipping. The pads are kind of our big thing, but we have a lot of cool features on some of the pants. Let me know if you do so I can discuss further with you.

Have a great holiday everyone!

 

[phishfood]

For doing ground roughs and running above ground drainage, a handy pocket located and sized for a torpedo level. And the tip of the week, a pocket that has a reinforced lip to hook a tape measure on. Maybe even a purpose built carrier for a tape measure. I have worn out the right hand pocket on quite a few pairs of Wranglers carrying my tape there.

 

[Chris]

We always have a tape, torpedo and marker so if there is a convenient place for those it's a plus.

 

[kneedz]

For doing ground roughs and running above ground drainage, a handy pocket located and sized for a torpedo level. And the tip of the week, a pocket that has a reinforced lip to hook a tape measure on. Maybe even a purpose built carrier for a tape measure. I have worn out the right hand pocket on quite a few pairs of Wranglers carrying my tape there.

I use the carpenter style for rough work, I think the "ruler" pocket is about the size for my torpedo. We took many people's advice about the reinforced pocket too, ours has an additional layer of fabric at the right pocket just for that (I actually keep my knife there too). What would a "purpose built carrier" for tape measure look like? Examples?

Thanks for the input so far!! Quick question, do most folks wear a carpenter style pant, or need a uniform look? Do you have options at work, or are you required to wear a certain color/ style? If so, do they provide the uniforms, or you? Thanks again, Merry Christmas.