insulator

outside sales representative

installer

spray foam installer

garage door installer

31-W Insulation

I was employed as a Branch Manager for this company.  During my interview I was told that I would have to go to home office for one week of training. 

On my second day of employment ,I was told that I would have to do five weeks out of town training.  Being gone for two weeks at a time.   With myself covering all the expense of the travel, but that I would be reimbursed for my expenses. 

I was told by our Warehouse Manager that it takes three weeks to receive your reimbursements from the company.   That is far too long, when you have bills to pay and financial obligations.

The pay was very low and the expectations very high .

The equipment was in terrible condition.  There is absolutely no way to portray a professional lasting impression to any prospective customers, with being not in uniform, nor having a truck with dents, all over it and being unsafe as well.  

Not only do you pay all expenses, but at this branch in Oak Grove, Missouri, I was the 7th Branch Manager, in two years.   Doesn't make you feel to secure now does it.  

I was told that all the customer relations were spoiled and that I as Branch Manager had to  rekindle those relationships, by meeting and taking out to eat and such the customers, letting them know that we are a different 31-W.   Again all this was on my dime, waiting for reimbursements. 

Has the company not ever heard of a Company Credit Card, for just those sort of expenses? 

Even down to my keyboard being broken for my computer.  The company phone they gave me was broken and needed to be overnighted to the corporate office.   Again that expense was mine to incur. 

The Regional Manager was dishonest with me in the interview about training, travel, monthly revenue, expenses and quite a bit more. 

So I decided that 31-W was not conducive to who I am as a Manager, nor the type of company I wished to work for, who has no moral understanding of family, away time and overall compassion for someone's financial obligations either.  

They wanted me to start spending tons of money on things, prior to me even getting my first check!  

Not to mention as part of your hiring packet, you even have to purchase your own 31-W shirts, they are too cheap to even provide them to you.  

Stay away folks.  There is little to no compensation.   They have no desire to retain a staff of knowledge.  They could care less about your personal life, only the needs of the company.   

My synopsis is...........They are a joke.

The bad reviews aren't even as bad as the fact that the branch manager admits it's all true. And from the very second they open their mouths the lies spew forth.
I risked alot, to learn a trade that would help me, and my family, grow. Instead, I worked long hours, sometimes not even seeing my kids for a week, leaving before they woke up and getting home after they were in bed. But then, some days there was absolutely nothing to do; go home, or do busy work at a warehouse two hours from my home. Pay shifted back and forth from $10/hr to piece rate that added up to wages less than wait staff pay minus the tips. Sure, once you're an experienced professional, you can knock out 8 jobs a day like the other pros...which are...4 people.
There's plenty of room for growth, you just have to manage to sustain the terrible days long enough for everyone else above you to quit or get fired.
Also...alot of driving. Like, 50% of my shift is wasted sitting in traffic going to site way outside of what should be my radius for my branch. I longed to get out and really learn the craft, but after sitting at the office waiting for work orders, and sitting through the driver, I'm feeling fatigued, and it's quite possibly already lunch time.
Training? Every person that trained me was sacked. Then I became a trainer because no one else could, and then was told everything I did was wrong. I was told they would retrain me, but at minimum wage. No thanks. And I'm sent to train with well seasoned pros that, while pretty nice guys, they ultimately just want to get the job done and not baby sit.
The sad thing is, it's not even hard work, just unsteady. And the piece rate pay makes no sense. My wife and I couldn't make sense of my paystubs filled with random numbers ranging from $95 to $3.50 per job. On one day I made $60 for 10 hours of work that included driving.
Driving is 50% of this job, if you're a driver, and the pay is way below par, especially when they seem to be so picky.

I was told in the interview that this was a place i could have a career and support a family. The pay is production which is fine if it is scaled correctly. They said slow installers make $500-$600 a week and good ones $800-$1000. I haven't come anywhere close to that. My first two weeks were training with hourly wage and a percentage of the product installed which actually wasn't bad. Once i went to straight production pay everything changed. I just worker a 40 hour week in 4 days and made $175 before taxes. Now i didn't slow down my pace i actually turned it up a couple notches since i only get paid once the job is finished. This company has ridiculous expectations for their installers they expect a 2 man crew to drive over an hour to the job site (unpaid) stage the job install everything and drive back in 4-6 hours. They also expect for a crew to finish 2 houses a day. It can't be done especially when they always and I mean ALWAYS short you on material and wont bring anymore out to you. For instance today me and my coworker ( after a 2 hour delay at the shop) drove an hour to our job site. I had to make at least 3 calls for more material and i never got all of it. The 2 of us put in an 11 hour day couldn't finish the one house and only took a 30 minute lunch. since we didnt finish it today we have to go back again tomorrow. so it will end up being roughly 15 hours of work for $117 to split in half. This is an everyday thing with this company. I DO NOT ADVISE ANYONE TO WORK HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! P.S. the trucks are not kept up at all i almost hit another car because there was a mirror missing and i couldn't see

Working for this company has been one of the most horrible experiences in my entire working career. I can think of several other jobs that would be better compared to this. Possibly running a snow cone shack in Antarctica or sign shaker on the freeway. As you have seen in previous reviews everything that has been said about this company is unfortunately true. Anything above the location manager tier consist of theft and lying to their employees. They have ripped off installers,sales staff, and location managers as well as secretaries (they do not have “office managers” in the company) through out the years whether it been five,fifty, or five hundred dollars. They are in the habit of accusing everyone in the company of stealing when in reality they are the main offenders . It is a normal behavior for them. My recommendation is that if you read the reviews pay attention to them. I know you usually see bad reviews on a company due to the fact that former employees are upset over something or another, but in this instance I have to say they are a 100% accurate. Their turnover in management is to say the least an amazingly high number. That should tell you something right there. If you do an interview please be sure to ask how many people held that position before you. Good luck in your job searches and truly I would seek opportunity with any other company then this one.

After I reached my one year mark I requested to take my one week paid vacation to get some much needed mental health treatment my manager initially denied my request and was very vulgar with the way he spoke with me about it.  Ok so this job was pretty good in the beginning. It’s your standard insulation job. 2 man crew you’re paid off how much the job pays which is usually about 5% of what the customer paid for the job which it considered piece rate. The initial partner I had was requesting the hardest and nastiest jobs because they paid the most.  After a time my car broke down so he would drop me off close to home to save me the walk  home which initially I thought was great until I found out that he was going back to the shop and telling the boss that he performed most of the work so that way he can receive most of the money from the jobs we would get.  Soon afterwards he moved and I started training the newcomers .  So after they would get placed on the crew I was left with all of the crawl space jobs because grown men were complaining about doing them l.  Our manager was constantly stressed because everyone would call out leaving him to have to figure out what he could do to get jobs which would involve us usually having to take on more jobs leading us to get off later and later l.   M

I started early each day 6:30am-5:00pm. I learned to deal with people and clients. I learned how Profit and loss work. I learned how they wanted things done. Management would show up every couple of weeks and expect you to continue their outdated system. We tried locally to create a good workplace environment, but were limited by rules and regulations of the home office. They use the same system in every city and don't allow for any outside the box thinking. Typical day at work was loading and scanning inventory, getting crews assigned and sent out. Answering calls, cleaning the warehouse, fixing laborers mistakes, imputing paperwork for upcoming days, managing schedule, ensuring quality with inspections, repairing equipment, maintaining records, checking back in trucks and inventory. Often doing bids and measurements, and making sales as time allows.

I was in sales with the Fort Worth location, only about 3-4 months, i had to relocate for family reasons. This location in years past had lots of negative reviews, mainly high turnover with bad management. Over the past year they have cleaned house and I believe must have changed the style in the way they run the day to day operations. 
You get paid weekly (that's nice) plus you can make commission on top of that. You need to know basic math and the rest is common sense, where insulation would be put in a new home.  After a week or so of training it's pretty easy to figure out. 
I received a few builders handed to me but I was there to sell and give the customer an insulation package they were looking for. There is lots of business to be had in the DFW area but it won't come to you, you have to go get it. If you're lazy, this won't work for you. If you're a go getter you can make lots of money. Just like any sales job, the longer you work at it....building relationships and getting to know the industry, the more money you can make.

My day starts with finishing the jobs from the prior day, then approving employee work hours from prior day. Then getting all the trucks loaded for scheduled jobs. Once all trucks are loaded and gone to jobsites, we use an inventory gin to load all materials that were loaded, print off our inventory and count our inventory. Once this is complete, I can start confirming jobs for the next work day with the salesmen and customers. I will go to jobsites and check on work being done. By the way, every Monday, we create purchase orders for materials (Insulation, gutter, garage door and acc.) to maintain our inventory. I will do plan take-offs, if I have any new jobs coming up. I will pay visits to customers and prospects for new business. I have to enter our vehicle mileage daily, and schedule any maintenance or repairs for the vehicles.

This is a terribly run company from the top down. Worked there roughly two years and had more than a dozen managers. The company was  a revolving door. Worked very hard at developing s book of business only to be fired for medical issues. The company added insult to injury by disputing my unemployment benefits during the COVID pandemic and while I could not walk. There is no opportunity to advance unless you are part of, or Marry into the family. This being said the worst issue with 31W is the turnover at the regional manager positions. It is very difficult to gain any continuity or consistency when you have 13 different regional managers in 18 months. If 31W comes a calling run the other direction!!!

The location I worked at was understaffed. The company trucks were in port condition and not well maintained. The sales representative was supposed to assess the job beforehand and let you know what material you would need but he would get things wrong and we would drive all the way to the jobsite with the wrong materials and have to come all the way back to the company to get the right material. You weren't paid by the hour only by the job so if you were sent to Boone from hickory with the wrong material you weren't paid for any driving time. Also had the truck breakdown a few times because of no upkeep on the truck. Would often work 12-14 hour days because of being sent with the wrong material and other issues but would only get paid for the job we were doing which was like 75-100 dollars

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Insulator 54 salaries reported	$896 per week
Outside sales representative 28 salaries reported	$72,067 per year
Installer 11 salaries reported	$19.73 per hour
Spray foam installer 7 salaries reported	$100,000 per year
Garage door installer 4 salaries reported	$1,025 per week

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