Future of Plumbing

[Bernie2]

In another mail Brian was saying how lead work is the only skill element now left in Plumbing. I would agree to a certain extent. Copper pipe is easy enough to bend but still takes a bit of skill. Sheet copper has virtually become a niche market and lots of it seems to be done by machine now anyway.

So where is the future for Plumbing?

Well I think its moving more onto a knowledge based job as well as a physical.

There is skill in getting a job to look well.

There is knowledge when you gaze into a Valliant combi and wonder what all those pretty coloured wires, transistors and thermistors are for.

There is knowledge in installing a central heating system that would work by natural circulation and only uses the pump on minimum setting.

There is knowledge in knowing how to heat a house, with solar, or heat pumps.

Putting it simply there is a lot to know nowadays, that is not to say there wasn't in the past, its just different.

So what of the future?

Well in the UK gas boilers are said to produce 60% of our carbon di oxide and a pile of nox. Its fairly obvious something may have to be done about that.

Heat pumps? maybe. Wind power? Solar power? Geo thermal, Fuel cells, maybe? Local atomic piles, maybe? Don't laugh they have them in subs and if the oil runs out who knows?

So electrical heating and boilers?

Loads to think about. But all heavy on knowledge rather than physical skill.

 

[Plouasne]

Bernie,

A few of my predictions

When the oil starts to run out plastics will be one of the first things to go (and for me it cannot come soon enough) then the felt roofs will go, metal roofs will be back in fashion again (but who in the UK will have the knowledge or skill to do this ??)

Wood pellet boilers with gravity circulation central heating, think of the electricity saved without the pump being used for circulating the water (what better use to use up the waste saw dust, than to make it into fuel??)

Insulation could become another speciality for the plumber, after all they should know all about "U" & "R" values, for designing central heating (unless they have opted to be told how to do it by the likes of Pricks, Balls and Qurap, etc)

 

[secret squirrel]

I agree with everything that Bernie has said but would like to add one thing, the one thing that you need in abundance is a lot of common sense, diy skill, problem solving, time management. Ok, thats far more than 1 thing but not sure how to put it.

Had to change over a cracked bath, although the pipe work was easy ish and turning off the boiler, airlocks etc was all knowledge based. The problem was getting rid of the old brackets holding the bath, securing the new bath into place.

I think that there is still a lot of skills required in plumbing. Even will all the big sheds etc and the internet for help. Its different when you pick up the spanners and start the job. I hope I've made my point clearly but not quite sure.

 

[Plucky]

Renewables.

Company I work for have done a shedload of solar installs, several air source units and just doing a 100kw ground source heat pump with 12x 100m boreholes in a school.

They are recieving lots of enquiries and talking about big £££

 

[Avatar]

God!

You guys are sounding a bit dated - how old are you lot, 60+!!!!

Plastic plumbing is moving forward, and as for lead work, I dont know ANY plumber who does it!!

I think you may have been sniffing the glue on this one mate . . .



'RAAAAGHHH'

Run, its a dinosaur!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Plouasne]

Me, I am proud to admit that I am 671/2, and still learning about plumbing, started when I was about 5 by reading a Froys catalogue, tech at 121/2, then apprenticeship, short spell with the Royal Engineers, back out on to the tools, then inside for a bit with a large firm doing plumbing design, working drawings (pen and ink those days),estimation, working up drawings by taking off the materials, working of a bill of quantities etc, then out on my own for a time then a limited company, "jacked" it all in when the big companies started to take the pi55 demanding a 25%cut across the board, came to France, and did more plumbing, had to go back to the UK for a divorce, did not want to go back on the tools because I had almost broken my back by falling down stairs, so took up a sitting down job by becoming a London Bus driver for a couple of years, then back to France doing driving jobs, retired late for France at 621/2, with a French pension, but still associated with the "game" because I have 1 son who is an artisan in France, and another who is the district manager of a French nation wide heating company

And I still say that plastic is for the kiddies, and if you canot do a bit of lead work you can not call yourself a proper plumber, and are just a glorified pipe fitter

 

[TGor]

snip....
And I still say that plastic is for the kiddies, and if you canot do a bit of lead work you can not call yourself a proper plumber, and are just a glorified pipe fitter

I would say that is not exactly the case Plouasne .. I am sure that the plumbers in the 1930's took a similar view regarding "thin walled" copper replacing lead pipes and the required re-skilling that went with the transition .. but transition there was and transition there will always be .. market forces will dictate (have you seen the price of copper!!!) I don't say one material is better than another .. they are different and as a craftsman you should choose the best material for the job, your customer and yourself. Horses for courses!!

As for the future of plumbing I see it as very bright .. with limitless opportunities for the youngsters coming into the trade .. (providing they refrain from rude dinosaur comments or they might find themselves extinct!!!) as Bernie & Plucky pointed out, strong opportunities for energy conserving installations exist now and will gather strength.

The master plumbers association in germany is training their members to do energy performance surveys .. think of the bolt-ons that could generate.

The basic premise of plumbing .. to provide systems for safe and effective transport for water, waste & gas is a skill in itself, you do need to know a lot of stuff! The health aspects of plumbing should never be forgotten or taken for granted .. 43 people died in one Hong Kong building due to SARS being spread throught the building via dry floor drains. The WHO have as a result officially recognised the important role that plumbing plays in protecting public health and the World Plumbing Council has seconded one of their members to work with WHO in Geneva on several plumbing/health related projects.

 

[david williams]

what future is there for plumbing to be a trade when you can be trained in six weeks

 

[unguided1]

the future of plumbing half a day a week working, the rest of the week spent reading and checking new regulations, checking health and safety, worrying about insurances talking to yer therapist and beating yer loveslave.

 

[justlead1]

The Future of Plumbing. Will offer the same opportunities as the past. Having lived in both the metropolis and the country, i am now aware of the difference when applied to plumbing. A plumber in a rural area may need to take on associated work to make ends meet, may never work on a building more than two stories high, but has satisfied customers. A plumber in a city may never consider tiling a shower etc. Although i have tried to practice all the skills/knowledge gained during my training(to keep bordom at bay) on reflection it is to broader trade to pursue this line. Specialising in one area, perhaps dropping the word plumber, allows you to get very good at it, buy right and provide a good service to clients. The communication technology allow instant access to information, this will have a major roll to play in the future. I often receive a video over the mobile phone of a problem being experienced on site. Allowing discussion and solution from an arm chair, in a cost effective manner. But you will aways have the get rich quick merchants that universal.

 

[Bernie2]

Yes,I suppose its true. regardless of what we may like or think, commerce will drive the markets to a great extent.

People will simply not pay £3.50 a meter for copper if they can get plastic for 50p a meter. We have to accept that and work within those parameters. And yes installing will get easier and faster as product technology changes.

One of the biggest areas though, as has been mentioned, is health. The Plumber is critical. The Brit government during the cold war once produced a list of the people they felt it was essential to go in a bomb proof shelter to start reconstruction after the bomb. A Plumber was about number three at the top of the list.

The reason being, you can only survive three days without water and good hygiene practice is required for waste products.

For myself, I rather think that the cheap energy source to replace gas boilers in domestic properties, has yet to be found.

The problem with plastic is that its hydro carbon based, and the factories that make it are said to be polluters.

But there are some seemingly good technologies knocking about. I was interested to hear that Rolls Royce are working on fuel cells, with the idea of making local ones, I suppose a bit like the sub stations we have now.

Battery power may come into its own if the charge could be gotten from wind energy. But then what energy is used to make the battery?

Perhaps after all, the approach may not just be one way but many ways. The thing is we need to hurry.

 

[TGor]

what future is there for plumbing to be a trade when you can be trained in six weeks

The answer to that is you can't be "trained" in 6 weeks most normal people would recognise that as a fact ... except of course the dumb f88ks in the govt who have refused for years to implement a proper licensing system for plumbers!! got one in scotland I believe .. along with free prescriptions etc etc ... maybe should all move to where the smart people are

 

[Avatar]

People like me are the future of plumbing - young, fresh and better smelling!

Get used to it.

Nobody wants a 5 year aprentiship anymore.

I am all for any advances - God, where would we be if old fogies like yourselves stopped the last 20 years advances in computer technology!

I think you get my drift . . .

 

[Plouasne]

My replys are in the quote box

People like me are the future of plumbing - young, fresh and better smelling! And still green

Get used to it. You will change your tune soon enough

Nobody wants a 5 year aprentiship anymore. I agree with you there, it should be a seven year apprenticeship to cover all the different aspects of the profession, with regard to public health the plumber is just about on a par with a doctor, for the correct installation of a proper installation of a clean water supply, and the correct installation of a drainage system, which does not cause a danger to public health, or contaminate water supplies

I am all for any advances - God, where would we be if old fogies like yourselves stopped the last 20 years advances in computer technology! Possibly the Plumbing industry would be in a better shape than it is now

I think you get my drift . . .yes all at sea without a paddle to get to the shore

 

[stevetheplumber]

My replys are in the quote box

paddles went out long ago m8 and sails outboards are the way forward

My replys are in the quote box

just as a mattter of interest what were you views on the introduction of the wheel?

 

[david williams]

as an older plumber and able to design install and maintain plumbing from a bossed lead roof to solar and heat pumps.you may smell fresh but that only sayes you do not work a lot as the rest of us smell of boss white flux etc after a hard days work,you should get used to the fact you do not have our knowlage or experience.i have of late had to inspect work carried out by fast track plumbers and im sorrey to say in most cases found it to be not of an acceptable standerd

 

[TGor]

People like me are the future of plumbing - young, fresh and better smelling!

Get used to it.

Nobody wants a 5 year aprentiship anymore.

I am all for any advances - God, where would we be if old fogies like yourselves stopped the last 20 years advances in computer technology!

I think you get my drift . . .

Because nobody wants it doesn't mean its a bad thing! but I do agree that 5 years is ott however the gap between 6 weeks and 5 years is a bit too much of a stretch .. as I mentioned earlier uk needs a licensing system like thay have in oz for example where you have to have proper qualifications, proper insurance and CPD .. your work is regularly inspected and if its not up to scratch your licence will be revoked.

I have no problem with young people there was a lot of them at my school I remember I do have a problem with cowboys and untrained incompetent people who pass themselves off to the unsuspecting public as "qualified" and in doing so undermine the reputation of plumbers and plumbing which as you may know is the second oldest profession.

Er ... its 11.30 a.m. on a Wednesday .. why aren't you out working??

 

[david williams]

you dont have a lap top ? thought you young people moved with the times

 

[Plouasne]

just a bit of reminiscing,

My mate was an old lead plumber what he did not know about lead work, could be written on a postage stamp, in the '30's most copper was screwed copper, and thin wall copper was just coming in, and he was taught how to fire bend sand loaded copper by an out of work, ex ship boiler maker Jarrow marcher, and from that day on he always annealed any copper tube before he bent it with a spring, on caulked joints he always maintained it was the yarn that made the joint the lead was just a dust cover, in the first world war when lead was scarce cast iron water mains were yarned and then had a cement joint, his test for an apprentice was to lay two lengths of cast iron own on a couple of blocks and then stand on the joint when it had just been yarned, if the joint moved it wasn't yarned properly, I later on in life had reason to thank him for this, because many a time I have laid cast iron water mains with caulked lead joints and none of them moved or leaked with 200psi test pressure behind the joints

My aunt who entered nursing in the '30's told me that the student nurses were shown around both water and sewerage works as part of their training, because of the relevance of both of these to public health

I can remember Jimmy Haig of the Registered Plumbers, writing about plastic pipe work and how it came to be used in plumbing, according to him it was an offspin of the aircraft industry, the first mass use of PVC pipe was in the 747 and used to reduce weight of the aircraft, compare the life time of an aircraft to a building, 20 to 30 years max for an aircraft, 100 years or more for a building, no comparison

whilst plastic has some use in plumbing it is not the be all and end all, SWWW in Cornwall, had to renew their 60cm trunk main in PVC because it could not stand fluctuating water pressure, with cast iron, after a gas explosion in Lille France, caused by a fractured cast iron gas main, the French state decreed that all cast iron gas mains would be replaced with plastic, a couple of years later in a Paris suburb, a digger driver put his bucket through a 60cm plastic gas main, again an explosion with a fire following, it took half a day to shut off the gas to the area and extinguish the fire, if that gas had been in DUCTILE cast iron that accident would more than likely not have happened, because the cast iron would have dented and resisted the digger bucket

When SWWA took over the Liskeard and district water company, after a short time, they moved the local office to Plymouth, then later on to Saint Austell, the bean counters in the Exeter head office said that all the record drawings of the water mains were a waste of space, and to ditch them, 3 years later they had to send an office boy to see me, and ask me to point out where their water mains were in the village, one of the reasons for this was that SWWA had decided to do away with their own inspectors to save money, and their own mains layers had instructions to connect any new service to the water main even if it did not conform to the water boards bylaws, because there had been too many complaints from developers, about refusal to connect because of infringements of the bylaws (shades of brown paper envelopes ??)

Experience comes with time, it cannot be taught in 4/6 weeks/months, throw any job at me, from sheet metal roofing, microbore and normal sized heating, to 60cm cast iron drainage, and water mains, 150mm plastic water mains electro fusion welded, 150mm copper pipe work, including septic tanks and private water supply, plus a desalination of seawater to drinking water plant in the middle east, and I have either done it, designed it or been involved in the estimation, taking materials off drawings, and working up bills of quantities, but then I have been lucky in life that way, and moved around a bit, and taken any chance to get on in plumbing, I know just a little bit about the US/Canadian standards not much I will admit, I also know the French standards for plumbing and gas fitting, having been a plumber/gas (LPG) fitter in France but it has taken me the best part of 60 odd years so far

 

[Bernie2]

Hmm!

The Joint Industrial Board for Mechanical Service Engineers has had a grade system since the 70's.

The idea being, that those newly trained where in the bottom category and could work their way up over the years to another grade and then to a Technical grade, after a minimum of 11 years proved experience and any qualification required.

It involved all your qualification, employment information as well as job experience going before a panel made up of union and company representatives for investigation. If you got through, you got the grade, if you did not, you tried again when you had more to offer.

The thing is it was dear for a company to be in the JIB so many dropped out.

Over all it was to stop those who had least experience getting the same money as those with. And for employers to know what they where getting. The sparks has one the same.

The employer could sack you on the spot if you could not do what the grade card said you should be able to do.

Also in the old days most councils had specialist clerk of works whose job it was to go around and inspect trade work. They where not college guys but experienced old tradesmen from each trade, who knew nearly every trick in the book, and you where required to turn out work to their satisfaction, or you ripped it out and your company paid for it or you fixed it yourself, if you did not want the sack. You soon learned to get it right.

 

[stevetheplumber]

now that the plumbing industry has been deskilled the next step is licencing to attempt to keep some exclusivity to the trade problem with this is it adds costs and time consuming paper work to the job which makes the cowboy element even more competetive

 

[Plouasne]

now that the plumbing industry has been deskilled the next step is licencing to attempt to keep some exclusivity to the trade problem with this is it adds costs and time consuming paper work to the job which makes the cowboy element even more competetive

Nonsense being talked here, by the above poster, how does the US, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland, South Africa, all manage to work with licensed trades persons then, without being put out of business by the cowboy's

 

[radswilldo]

The future will be different and the same. Fuel cells, when perfected, will become the norm, they will extract the hyrdrogen from the established gas supply. Natural gas, when the day comes, will be replaced by a greener town gas, coal can be burned at 99%+ efficiency. Of the current systems, ground source heat pumps are the best, but are impratical for most homes, fuel cells will make all other current alternatives redundant.

I would like to see the trade licensed, its been back and forth now with heads of plumbing meeting at parliment, the last I heard is it will never happen. Cowboys are an increasing problem year on year in here, its the customers who are at fault. They'll pay fortunes for a television that will not last 5 years but want their heating done for nothing, the country needs mass cleansing, I cant wait

 

[Plouasne]

The only thing that will make the UK government change their mind about licensing of plumbers, is when one of their own dies of a water problem whether its a disease like cholera, or cross contamination when on home dialysis, and it was proved to be faulty plumbing

Ronan Point started the ball rolling, with CORGI, the then in power government had to be seen doing something, hence CORGI; then came part P of the building regs, some idiot of a partner of an MP's daughter wired up a switch in a kitchen which fried her

But the whole set up in the UK with the system is that its not set up to help both the general public and the trade, but with the eye on a nice little money earner for those who are mandated by the government, look at Gas Safe, a company that was a no company 20 odd years ago, was given about half a dozen IT projects (all failures with cost over run or scrapped), bungs a million quid to the party in power, and low and behold a few months later CORGI is no more, and Gas Safe is in power

 

[radswilldo]

Most of us know it was a bung, corgi wasn't perfect, but under its reign death rates dropped and it had 98% recognition with the public. More regulations are comming for all trades, but not to their benifit, its about paper trails for tax, the governments have always wanted to regulate these enormous cash trades.