questions from supposed plumbers

[Hugh]

guys even in N.Ireland you get the cow boys who are ripping us plumber's off iv,e seen many bad very unsafe jobs carried out by soposed plumbers and most of these hatchet men have the money made and in the bank. we just cant conpete with their prices. lets hope in ten years the whole industry will be licen

 

[david williams]

bpec city and guilds have all lowerd there standards to accomadate these new private training companies.you still can not train a competant plumber in under two years.

most older plumbers i know are always prepaired to pass on their skills .the problem is more complicated than that.you do not need any formal training to call youself a plumber.fast track in most cases is to fast track.then you have those who believe that all they need is a spanner to call themselves a plumber and those who dont give a damm as long as they can get away with poor workmanship as long as they get paid.legislation on the definition of a plumbers abilty and qualifications along with structured legaly binding training system is what is needed

 

[justlead1]

In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.

Plumbers working for established plumbing companies have the resources and support of others, there is always a pecking order. The big stick being the sack. They are in most cases not required to design systems or pipe sizes, this is communicated via drawings and management. However there are people who through necessity are self employed plumbers who lack the technical knowledge to operate at an acceptable level with regard to fault finding, repairs and installation, especially when viewed against the one man band domestic market. The only criteria being getting paid by the client, who does not really know what he"s brought. And then on to the next one. There is no responsibility accepted for the work carried out. If the client rings a week later with a problem, he cant get hold of the plumber. Having been a one man band there is no way i could have carried out my work without being a plumbing technician. The technical knowledge is by far the most important need. In this day and age the materials are easy to fit / install, but must meet standards and system performance on completion.

 

[student plumber]

I've been reading here about excess plumbers and been wondering if I've made a mistake on the education route.

Been in factories for best part of 20 years and not really gone up any real promotions, given more responsibility but still only earnt about £6 ph or so, can't afford to move out of home. Could've taken the bosses offer of learning to punch or fold sheet steel but didn't want to be doing that in 20 yrs either.

I needed to retrain but had to find something I could already do (have soldering and bending experience, and a freind suggested plumbing) so had to be plumbing, but collages want minimum quals which I don't have (had stutter as a child).

I was directed towards these "theory home study course with practical assessments" from a retraining centre and Lv 2 with 6129 and a few others. Where as the college does just 6129 for 35 wks and so many hundreds of pounds (plus quals). The only way in was Lv 1. I applied to both to see what I could get. I also applied for maths course at same time.

Had an interview at home with home study man he was surprised and apprehensive at my low quals but afterwards plus maths test and me wearing a suit, he offered me a place I took it. £4.000 and 3 yrs to pay off course sounded about the same time and cost as college.

Then a interview for college came up Lv 1 and I thought Lv 1 would mean more experience complement Lv 2. He was also surprised (quals) plus maths test which was a lot harder. But he had given me a caculator which made it a lot easier though I did try to do some without it and it was multiple choice which I don't like because it helps you. I like to be tested.

On one question I had to work out the area of a rectangle (caculator) then a circle, I had to guess as I didn't know how even though the formula was written down. Then add the two together but no answers matched so I went for the other high answer for the circle, and got them all right. Without multiple choice I would've got 2 wrong and without the caculator so would the rectangle. There were other questions that would've been wrong as well.

The tutor had to pop out for a bit and I did not peek at the answers. I didn't even know if he had them there and didn't know where he was so thought it best to wait. He did have them and thought I'd peeked as I'd scored 100%, 100questions, I admitted the caculator and multiple choice helped.

He offered me a place on Lv 2 as Lv 1 isn't a course and it was for people with difficulties and is a way of getting people interested without putting them straight into a course and I would be bored.

He would put me on a shortlist should a place come available (Lv 2 was full)for me should someone drop out (which they always do as some realise it's harder than what they thought it would be) which I turned down because I was already accepted on a Lv 2.

Under those time/cost conditions I didn't think it was a fast track course. Just that they were able to offer it in a complete package because they're the private sector.

I've already paid over a third of the course fee and with the theory it covers I'm thinking there's bound to be stuff that I can learn from it.

But I'm wondering if I should approach the nice man from the college and get on a course or courses, as it seems even if it means doing something twice at least I get the experience that will more likely mean a plumber taking me on because I've been to college and not just a fast track course.

Although I like the idea of being my own boss I know it's hard work and I intend to start off working for someone, that is unless I decide it's to much hassle esp from what I'm hearing here then I'll stay working for someone. The latter is more likely.

I have since passed the maths course and can work out the area of a rectangle and a circle with pen and paper. I am looking to do a tougher level in the near future as there's always more to learn.

Thoughts 😱 anybody 😱😱.

I had thought about writing a book, but I don't think anyone would read it 😀.

 

[philtheflush]

i was working in royal mail earning £415 a week for doing diddly squat what drove me to do a plumbing course was to learn a trade that was helpful to me and maybe others didnt do it for the money , and cause i enjoyed it and really found it interesting , i thought maybe i could start making some money out of this and thought what a challenge.this forum has helped me with a lot of knowledge to give me a bit of confidence when working on a customers plumbing. but rather than gripe about wannabe plumbers on fast track and just out of college weve got to start as learners and if no one is taking on then were else can we go for advice but here, wouldnt it be better to help. its frustrating not being able to get work with a plumber i really want the experience. so please help rather than critisise atleast you know the advice your giving is safe advice and if they dont listen they wont last in this trade.

 

[Bernie2]

Well although I am now retired, looking back over many years of work in the Plumbing/Central heating/Gas fitting industry, what I can say, is that I had bags of opportunity to gain experience in nearly every field of Plumbing, except ships.

Being frank the companies wanted workers, its as simple as that.

In the big companies depending on what job you had, you could perhaps get away with having less knowledge than you could in a small company. In the bigger companies you sometimes had some one to ask how to do things, in the smaller it was usually all down to you.

As I said though, a lot depended on the job you did for the company, if you where supervisory it could be quite a difficult job, as usually, you where responsible not only for production and manpower control but also the technical supervision of the work, liaising with the various managements to try and solve all kinds of problems.

They looked upon you as being the expert company so relied on you to tell them of anything wrong on the drawings and perhaps suggest ways to improve or do things a different way.

Some site work was usually just a case of following drawings. Not always of course but many times.

The problem was, you where usually required to work much faster, house bashing was like working on a factory production line. You could go in first thing and not stop all day except for perhaps 1/2 hr lunch and drink of tea while working. You where also usually responsible for the quality of your own work. And it got inspected many times by different people. To many complaints and out you would go.