Most of the people I know that did construction worked like dogs for six months of the year on the road, then took most of the rest of the year off. These were

Most of the people I know that did construction worked like dogs for six months of the year on the road, then took most of the rest of the year off. These were mostly workers for largish construction contractors, so they would go into a plant during the biannual shut downs, tear the thing apart and put it back together over the course of three weeks or a month, then move onto the next job. They tended to work a lot of hours, since it's a very tight schedule with deadlines - it costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars every day these kinds of plants aren't operating - so they'd rack up a ton of overtime, plus living on the road with housing taken care of or a per diem. It's not really that bad a gig, especially if you can live somewhere cheap the rest of the time. In a lot of ways it's very similar to people I know who are merchant marine. After a few years they tended to have specialized into something, so they'd get a more regular job or go into business for themselves.