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with a seven year apprenticeship, two years at southampton university and several acs renewals under my belt, its not experience most outfits want today, its just get in and get out. clients want the quality, but arent prepared to pay the price. In fact a large majority are now looking deliberately how not to pay at all....
 
MAD

Don't rush into the NVQs, given your engineering background. You sound like your in a good position to apply to existing firms for training, and entry to gas through ACS and the relevant category status. Anyone taking you on for NVQ2 would be doing you a dis-service.

If existing firms are not available, then the new QCF should allow you to buy the relevant bits of training you want.

This said, there has been a cultural change over the last few years and its stunning - it has become common sense that going to college is the way to learn a trade. Not-quite in my own experience.

Ask installers if their college knowledge related to what they did at work, and they will probably reply - it did at level 3 - hence, don't bother with NVQ2, and go straight to level 3 - I would argue this one - they can't stop you from buying the courses you want, if they do, then write to the college principle - he won't want to turn anyone away.

Both College and Universities will try to sell you stuff you don't need, so its the name of the game.

I would even suggest not bothering with qualifications at all, and just try to concentrate on getting work experience first.

You also need to do some serious research if you want to come into this trade...everyone seems very confident that they can make it, they have the edge....well you don't need to be great to make it, just cheap or work for free. Public not interested these days, cheapest gets the job.

Another idea would be train in renewables at level 4 - you can progress to this with your existing quals, and become a manager of those with NVQ2 and 3 - let them do the work, and just manage the business. The renewables sector is all about management, and trades on minimum wage.
 
Mad, well done for taking heed of the advice here on what is becomig a very "touchy" subject on this forum. With your background in aeronotics, I think that if you take your time and become proficient at plumbing first then progress onto gas etc you will make a very good plumber.

Best of luck in your endeavour and welcome to the trade.
 
good luck mate and if ye need owt or any advice just get in touch,just be careful wat you sign up for
 
hasbean said:
Hi .As somebody many years ago spent five years as apprentice plumber, 2 more years as a improver, and the next 47 years learning every day, how do these guys going on short courses know much, you can tell just by the questions they ask, in my day a gas fitter was just that, with a wealth of knowledge. I know this seems to old hat to most of you young people, but would you want some bloke with a book in one hand fixing a gas boiler I don't. You can tell by the cockup with condensing boilers, with the condense run to outside into the frost, anybody with some knowledge of water knows it freezes, our first boilers when they first came out we run 2" plastic, 22mm copper inside lagged, never had trouble.
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agree with most of what you say, apart from, the bloke i learnt with, put a condense pipe outside, he has been doing it for 20-30 years. and didnt insulate it, admitedly he did give me some insulation when it froze and i learnt something by going and defrosting it, but not neccesarily something you think about in this country, its not like we have snow and minus 7 temperatures every year, more like every 20 years.
 
lol - weve had temps of -10 at least these last two winters and that's in the sunny south!
 
1991 was well cold , so you're close
Personally I always keep the condensate inside although it's not always possible, if it has to go outside it gets upsized & lagged
 
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