What should a plumber be able to do ?

[chris watkins]

As some of you may know the plumbing qualification changed a couple years back, Lead flashings went out along with a few other bits but in came lots of electrical & some renewables.
At level 3 they have to be able to size & select a suitable borehole pump, design & draw a two-boiler installation with a low loss header etc. which although interesting seems a bit OTT.
The sector skills counsel claim they ask plumbing companies what they would want the employees to be able to do but what would you say a newly qualified plumber should be capable of in this modern world?
Could/should we have a domestic installer (plumbers) & then another class of plumber to do, say a bigger range like site work (plumber)? Should drain clearing be part of the trade or heating ?
What do you all think ?
A list of work or knowledge areas would be good, so any one joining the industry would have an idea of what a plumber should be able to do.

 

[hammers4spanner]

plumbing is a joke these days in my honest opinion ,level 3 to work out bore hole pump prob find it on net or over a phone call these days

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

be a brain engineer on 80k

 

[hammers4spanner]

I personally have had some right doughnuts come out the colleges these last few years makes me wonder what they go their for .And to be fair nobody has looked at my plumb certs for years nobody cares if your a craft or advanced plumbs now ,really dont think the certs are worth the paper they are printed on.

 

[bspareltd]

I have my NVQ 3 in plumbing and all that qualification is for somebody who wants to get into teaching !!!!!!!

 

[lame plumber]

about time they binned leadwork and got into llh and cascading boilers, should also include solar heating as well as ashp/gshp as general training. also the idea of a plumber dealing with guttering !!!!!!!!!!!! One idea would be for general site work and bathrooms as one qual and servicing and heating work as another level altogether. At present to much jack of all trades master of none. Everytime you look in a heating engineers van its chock a block with kit, seem to have to carry every conceivable tool and spare to be able to work now!

 

[vern]

Make an honest days living, with Internet warriors telling them they can get the gear cheaper, and without getting bumped :6:

 

[Ray Stafford]

Everytime you look in a heating engineers van its chock a block with kit, seem to have to carry every conceivable tool and spare to be able to work now!

Nothing to do with work-load or the complexity of the trade. A full van is the sign of a good merchant.

 

[lame plumber]

Down here every job is miles away from a merchant and oil spares are just rocking horse poo as none want to stock a decent supply anyhow!!!

 

[vern]

Nothing to do with work-load or the complexity of the trade. A full van is the sign of a good merchant.

View attachment 11118

lmao of Ray how true

 

[gasmanrob]

Shame about lead work being biffed off. It's a skill that looks to be lost, do they still teach pipe threading etc?. To be honest at college I spent more time sabotaging my mates work then I did achieving something constructive but I always passed the elements. Never forget the day we found out that a 1mtr length of 15 and a bit of wet plumbers mait makes the best pee shooter ever we could break skin from the other side of the workshop.

 

[vern]

Shame about lead work being biffed off. It's a skill that looks to be lost, do they still teach pipe threading etc?. To be honest at college I spent more time sabotaging my mates work then I did achieving something constructive but I always passed the elements. Never forget the day we found out that a 1mtr length of 15 and a bit of wet plumbers mait makes the best pee shooter ever we could break skin from the other side of the workshop.

Lol on the pea shooter we did the same with Fjc with a pin in the middle dipped in power flux, ouch

 

[kirkgas]

lead is still very much part of the course up here, the apprentices do the same things we have done for years,
lead, copper, steel, plus now they do plastic, pipework, guttering and drainage, CI drainage model is now with timesavers rather than run joints, once in third year they add either gas/oil/renewables depending on what work their employer does

 

[Whyme]

I was crap at lead soldering so bin it, but cascading boilers low loss headers, solar. Thats the future + electrical knowledge . Dont meen to bore but when i qualified my oldman "an oldskool" gave me a putty knife and a moleskin wiper with some plumbers black. didnt have the heart to tell him..

 

[TBServices]

I'll be honest, I wish they'd covered heat pumps and solar when I did my level 3.

 

[SimonG]

Knit fog?

 

[nicro3]

Dance with the devil in the cold moonlight.

 

[Whyme]

pretend you werent there.

 

[stevetheplumber]

qi did my aprentiship with a west end building companythe plumber did everything that the other trades could find a reason to pass on we did all forms of roofing but mostly lead and slate glazing if it was wood sahes the chippies did it but crittal windows patent galzing and rooflights were our responsibility any metal work came us it was a great training in general but possibly not in a plumbing sense

 

[chris watkins]

I have my NVQ 3 in plumbing and all that qualification is for somebody who wants to get into teaching !!!!!!!

Could you explain this post ? in what possible way would the level 3 be only useful to you if you wanted to teach ?

 

[buckley plumb]

hope being good at silicon sealing is not essential as i am hopless at it bought a fugi kit this wk hope this helps

 

[lame plumber]

Could you explain this post ? in what possible way would the level 3 be only useful to you if you wanted to teach ?

dont bite cw