Thinking outside of the box is a Hardy family tradition. 

Three generations of the Chicago family have looked at the plumbing trade as an opportunity to try something different. After almost a half century of cleaning drainlines and wielding pipe wrenches, the latest generation in the family company is adding trenchless pipe replacement to the lineup of services.

“After testing out trenchless equipment from PE Equipment, I said to myself, ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of this a long time ago,’” says Rodney M. Hardy, president of Standard Plumbing Contractor. “It is going to be a big game-changer for our plumbing business.”

Spoken like a true Hardy.

NEW HORIZONS

The patriarch of the business, Louis Hardy Sr., left Mississippi in 1957 and headed north to Chicago. It was a year of new horizons — ranging from Russia launching Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, to the U.S. government integrating Little Rock High School (Arkansas) — and the 18-year-old Hardy decided to look for opportunities over the horizon in The Windy City. He worked at various jobs there, landscaping and such, before seeing his future in plumbing. Others were succeeding at the trade and he saw no reason why he couldn’t, too.  

This entrepreneurial spirit seems deeply implanted in the Hardy family — Louis Hardy’s parents owned and operated their own farm in Mississippi — and so Louis Hardy plunged in, as business risk-takers always do. First, he traveled back home and persuaded a couple of buddies to return north with him to help start his business.   

Most of his plumbing labor was on property outside a home or business. He became adept at installing or replacing sewer lines, for example, cleaning drainlines, cellar work, the kinds of jobs that he could and did master on the job rather than in formal training. Notably, he completed several such projects for the Chicago Housing Authority. And the business grew. “He was very successful,” says Louis’ grandson, Rodney. 

After Louis Hardy married, his home continued to be his office and, eventually, five sons came along to augment his workforce. The enterprise continued from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. At that point, Louis’s youngest son, Rodney R. Hardy — father of current company president Rodney M. — began to move into a leadership role. He finally took over the company in 2005, which is when Standard Plumbing Contractor Inc. was formed.

TAKING ON BIGGER WORK

Rodney R. Hardy also was a risk-taker and he wanted to move the company in another direction. He convinced his father that getting into commercial plumbing, including some new-construction projects, would build the business. During the ensuing 20 years, Standard Plumbing Contractor completed 140 commercial buildouts.

Those projects included one in 2005 that still is the company’s largest to date, the repurposing of a building on Chicago’s South Loop. It had been the Chicago Lyric Opera’s fabrication and design center and was replumbed, renovated and transformed into 93 high-end condos. Standard Plumbing Contractor got two full years of work out of the makeover. 

Currently, the company is replacing all the waterlines in a seven-story, 80-unit commercial structure. How many feet of pipe are involved? “A lot,” says the third-generation plumbing executive, Rodney M. Hardy. He grew up around the company, of course, and at some point decided it could become a life work. “I came to know the plumbing trade was for me and I dove into an apprenticeship program right after high school.” 

In the next four years, while he was earning his plumbing certification, the young Hardy paid attention to what was going on, and concluded that “a lot of money was being left on the table.” He decided that the company’s lineup of services was missing the installation and repair of water and sewer lines for homes and businesses. So, the younger Hardy went to work persuading his father that Standard Plumbing Contractor needed to become more of a “one-stop plumbing company.” 

At first, his father was unenthusiastic. “Dad took a little bit of convincing,” Hardy recalls. “He always says, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ I needed to convince him the same way that he had to help his father change his mind.” His father did come around and approved financing of the equipment needed for such work, including a mini-excavator and a compact track loader. The equipment rolls out from the equipment yard at the company headquarters on South Michigan Avenue. 

Now the youngest Hardy is taking the company into the trenchless world. The company initiative is keyed to a long-term mandate enacted in 2021 by the state legislature, the Lead Service Line Replacement Act. Drinking water from a faucet served by a lead pipe has been long recognized as cumulatively toxic. Illinois — which has more lead pipe in its water systems than any other state — is one of three states now committed to removing all such lines.

“The project will take 30 or 40 years to complete,” notes Hardy. Some 680,000 lead pipelines will need to be replaced by copper lines and public funding is available for lower income property owners needing to get rid of the pipe. “That market will be around for decades and we want to take advantage of it.” 

He hopes that authorities in the Chicago metro area will look favorably upon the trenchless alternative to open trenches. It is a safer method — no trenches to fall into — efficient, comparably priced, less labor intensive and often faster. “We’re working with the city of Chicago and hoping that trenchless replacement will be the new standard.”

The system the company chose to perform such work is from PE Equipment. Specifically, Standard Plumbing Contractor will employ the PE-10, a hydraulic two-in-one machine that can be used to both push rod through soil for installation of new pipe next to the old line or burst pipe to replace it. The PE-10 is a portable unit — about four feet in length — that can operate from the hydraulic system of the excavator that opens the access hole. The rod pushed through the earth will connect to copper pipe at the other end and drag it into place.

“A great advantage is that the PE-10 has an optional sonde in the head of the rod being pushed through the earth so we can track its exact location,” Hardy says. He adds that a test run of the unit resulted in a fast setup time and a smooth and efficient insertion through clay soils. Later in June, the company was to run its first copper line, the first of three lead pipe replacement contracts already signed.

PE Equipment just introduced the PE-10 last November as an innovative and affordable solution for water and electric line projects. The pipe bursting application can handle pipe up to three inches in diameter and reportedly can pull back up to 150 foot of new pipe, tugging it through the soil at about 13 feet a per minute.

“I’ve been in talks with PE about the pipe bursting,” Hardy says. “We’re keeping an eye on it because we want to get into bursting in the near future. I’m grateful to PE for making such a great machine.”

REMEMBERING THE ROOTS

Standard Plumbing Contractor Inc. hasn’t forgotten its roots, that is, the fundamental plumbing needs of homeowners and businesses. “I want us to be there for the people. The residential plumbing market is very profitable for us and we wouldn’t want to lose that,” Hardy says. “But long term, I can see a realigning of the company into residential, commercial and trenchless divisions.”

Hardy says the company “takes pride in training” its 16 employees, including safety training. The crew also is generally cross-trained so they can respond to various plumbing service calls. Learning the trenchless procedure is the newest skill set to be mastered, going along with soldering copper pipe, assembling PVC sections, operating digging machinery and changing out bum toilets. 

Like every other company in the trades, Standard Plumbing Contractor must work to retain its trained employees. “Turnover exists, but one guy has been here 18 years,” Hardy says. “We try to be straight-up with the guys. We try for a family-oriented workplace, try to be fair and to treat each person with dignity and respect.” Especially one old guy who visits company work sites from time to time, the 86-year-old company founder, Louis Hardy Sr.

The young company president speaks confidently of the company’s future given the strength of the Chicago metro market. “Somebody’s always going to be building, always going to have plumbing that needs repair.” While the company doesn’t have a website, it is involved in the community through fundraisers. Mostly it relies upon social media, word-of-mouth and repeat customers. 

“When you do a good job, your name goes a long way,” says the president. That probably goes triple for a company with a third-generation name.