Working on unfamiliar Boilers(Lack of Training)

[mottthehunter]

A recent dispute has arisen at my place of work,one of our engineers was asked to service 2 commercial boilers that he had never seen before,he refused stateing he didnt feel confident and comfortable working on these appliances (stateing a lack of training),the answer was to give them to another engineer with little or no knowledge of commercial appliances at all,has anyone had this problem before and what are the safety aspects of this request on the affor mentioned engineers and for that matter the Company if anything was to go sadly wrong

 

[desrob]

A recent dispute has arisen at my place of work,one of our engineers was asked to service 2 commercial boilers that he had never seen before,he refused stateing he didnt feel confident and comfortable working on these appliances (stateing a lack of training),the answer was to give them to another engineer with little or no knowledge of commercial appliances at all,has anyone had this problem before and what are the safety aspects of this request on the affor mentioned engineers and for that matter the Company if anything was to go sadly wrong

your either qualified or your not ,no in between,commercial - domestic ,.just a line.

 

[REDSAW]

employer in breach of gsr 'competant persons scheme' under hse guideline.imo

 

[goz666]

My mate was Commercial for 20 years then went back on to domestic. In theory he could've probably gone and serviced most commercial appliances without any problems, BUT he had no commercial ticket anymore so END OF as far as i'm concerned. Your engineer was right to refuse. (My mate died last year aged 61, 45 years in this game and never even got to retire...RIP bud )

 

[kirkgas]

you can be qualified and competant or qualified and not competant in my opinion, the example i will quote is a boiler fitter who also has HTR1 which he gained 4.5yrs ago and hasnt worked on a fire since he did ACS i would say he is at risk of making an error checking the fire so he might not be competant, ok the gaffer says "you have the ticket" but fair play to the guy for stating he doesnt feel confident working on the appliance, the company haven't dealt with it well by sending someone else with no experience, surely the win-win situation was to send someone more experienced WITH the second guy (ok there is a cost but companies need to develop their staff not train them then blame them, you can just tell i dont work in the real world cant you)

 

[Mbear]

If he's qualified he's compotent in the authorities eyes. Now a lack of experience in a particular area is a different matter. Your mate (by the sounds of it) is ticketed and compotent, but he's feels he lacks experience on these boilers

 

[kirkgas]

If he's qualified he's compotent in the authorities eyes. Now a lack of experience in a particular area is a different matter. Your mate (by the sounds of it) is ticketed and compotent, but he's feels he lacks experience on these boilers

in the example i gave the guy was deemed competant 4.5 yrs ago, but is he competant now? he didnt do the spillage test properly and couldnt work everything out so by definition he isnt competant and has proved so

 

[Mbear]

in the example i gave the guy was deemed competant 4.5 yrs ago, but is he competant now? he didnt do the spillage test properly and couldnt work everything out so by definition he isnt competant and has proved so

Not being funny but that stuff is bread and butter. Surprised he even passed his ACS. The problem is he'd still be allowed to go service another fire if he wanted (until his ACS is up of course.

 

[kirkgas]

Not being funny but that stuff is bread and butter. Surprised he even passed his ACS. The problem is he'd still be allowed to go service another fire if he wanted (until his ACS is up of course.

i agree its bread and butter to you and i but not to everyone, i have heard from many guys when they come in for re-assessment that open flued appliances bother them as they by their own admission are white box fitters, and they last fire they worked on was that one over there (as they point to the one in the assessment bay) so i try not to be too harsh on anyone who is doing a fine job but with limited variety for the last 5 yrs, i would rather they declared their lack of confidence rather than blooter on and make big mistakes, and we all know with a 59 month old unused HTR1 ticket they would get the blame (rightly in my opinion, ) for any issues arising from their lack of skill

 

[Dannypipe]

Agreed. Got my HTR1. Never ever use it. Haven't for about oh, 4 years.

 

[Mbear]

They can always refuse or pass on work if theyre not too sure, but flueing and ventilation is the gas mans baseline, all other knowledge is gained after f&v. It's his job to know it and it's his fault if he doesn't. As for not being too harsh, that's all well and gd, but they leave ur centre with the same competences as the likes of me or whoever, I don't think it's very fair that you'd go harder on me than u would with them. (im not having a go here by the way lol). Everyone should be treated as equal, they may only fit certain things but they need all the tickets to do that and therefore their underpinning knowledge for want of a better phrase should be as gd as any gas man

 

[tamz]

The employer is not in breach of any GSR or HSE rulings as the guy had the relevant competencies but the guy in question was spot on refusing if he felt he was out of his zone and didn't feel confident.
There is a big difference between competent and confident and a bit paper for answering a few multi choice questions will never make you confident. This is something only gained through experience and a such is a failing in the system.
The company however, should have recognised the issue and sent him with a more experienced guy. One day hands on learning may have been all the guy needed which would have benifited the company. Instead they sent another competent un-confident operative. Bad management but at the end of the day they guy on the job takes the rap if it goes wrong.
All about the money. Badly managed company.

 

[kirkgas]

They can always refuse or pass on work if theyre not too sure, but flueing and ventilation is the gas mans baseline, all other knowledge is gained after f&v. It's his job to know it and it's his fault if he doesn't. As for not being too harsh, that's all well and gd, but they leave ur centre with the same competences as the likes of me or whoever, I don't think it's very fair that you'd go harder on me than u would with them. (im not having a go here by the way lol). Everyone should be treated as equal, they may only fit certain things but they need all the tickets to do that and therefore their underpinning knowledge for want of a better phrase should be as gd as any gas man

you wouldnt/shouldnt get a harder time, what i meant was them declaring they were a bit or a lot short of experience and we could work on some stuff during the refresher training, so when it came to the assessment he would be ok with the assessment and assessor, and i agree that flue and vent is base line and VERY easy, but i have serviced/repaired post inspected many many hundreds of OF appliances, but there are loads and loads of people who simply fir RS boilers in rooms and as long as they have i their head it doesnt need a vent and the terminal is the right distance from everything from the wee mad drawing in all the MI's of the house with 40 terminals on it then they are doing a very safe good job, but again they have no interest and or concern to retain such info as they simply dont need it and only do their ticket cause their boss makes them

 

[Jimbob]

I know a chap who serviced commercial cooker, he didn't want to do it and told his boss. But his boss basically said to just get on with it... so nevertheless he did it. A month later a inspector came in to inspect the kitchen for health and safety, asked to look at the certificates for the cookers and found he wasn't covered to do commercial... But apparently the buck stops with his employer so he has no worries... He should of stood his ground though

 

[mottthehunter]

Thanks for your inputs,and sorry to hear that goz666,thanks again for the comments