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help please peopleyes it was intensive and yes it was too much in too short a time, but the whole idea of having the placement is to put alot of it into practice. i know of 2 people who did the course previously to me, and are doing very well now, so i have seen the results work.
You should have gone to a campany that put you in a work placement,i have got a open day with met-uk.
Where they get you a workplacement in your area.
I can't get anyone to take me on without an acs.
Nothing simple about that,takes years to get it right.
I've been telling anyone who would listen these past four years not to take anyone on (apprentices and the like) but they all jumped on the bandwagon and now the industry is flooded with young boys and not so young men all looking for work.
Well the chickens are coming right home to roost now.
I still feel some responsibility to help to train sensible and respectful people particularly as I will probably somewhat retire in the future and I am already thinking how I can sell my business to a newcomer with a phased withdrawal on my part for a year or two.
The only problem is even if I find someone to pay me then how can I know if they are going to be able to successfully train. I know two arts graduates who have become quite good boiler engineers.
Tony
The only problem is even if I find someone to pay me then how can I know if they are going to be able to successfully train. I know two arts graduates who have become quite good boiler engineers.
Tony
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Why should we be responsible for making up the skills shortage in our industry when it's been allowed to run down to the ridiculous levels it has currently?Or so they would have us believe.
This government and previous governments are entirely responsible for the skills shortage in this country and as such they should have done something about it long before it has got the farcical state we are in today.
Industry can't solve such a shortfall far less an individual sole trader.
How can you possibly teach a lifetime of experience to someone who is in his mid thirties or forties? You simply can't and it's unrealistic to even attempt to do so.
The old apprenticeships are the only way to do that properly.Boys or girls starting at 16 and finishing their time at 20 then using the next five or six years making mistakes.
Starting out on a trade at 30 then three years later out on your own at 33 with five years of madness in front of you means that you are nearly 40 years of age before you are anywhere near ready to be properly termed a fully qualified and experienced tradesman.
Then you have only another 15 years before you start to wind down towards retirement.
B
bhamsamir
i understand the whole deal with the influx of people getting these quick fix courses and qualifications under their belt, and alot of them not knowing what to do on the job, but i cant speak for the majority as i am very comfortable and confident in what ive picked up and need to know. of course there is so much to learn, i know every job is a different job, i know there are huge responsibilities required to do this right, and i am and will make that effort required to get up to standard. ive alot of qualifications under my belt, including a BSc in Computer Science, which i simply have struggled for the last year to find employment within. ive lost so many years of my efforts in something and it hasnt worked, so i took a deep look at my options and markets out there, and i decided to go into gas installation. i want to work hard, will work hard, because i want this to work, i enjoy it, theres an obvious good wage to earn (with experience), and theres not much more i can say. so please people, again, if there is anyone out there willing to give me the chance, please do. and to those worried about training up a potential competitor, you dont need to worry. i am looking to move and work in london pretty soon, as the lady im going to marry lives and works there, so my future lies there.
Sorry to say it but you are very very mis-guided if you think you can earn a viable income installing boilers in London. The recent gathering at my local merchants was nothing but doom and gloom. Anyone of quality didnt have a single positive thing to say about the future of the industry...many were considering other options. The trade is dominated by illegal workers (both registered and unregistered) and customers that want to pay next to nothing for an installation. I have yet to find a fully compliant and legal installation since the regs. were updated back in April '05. You can be the highest quality installer out there...trouble is most of your competitors will undercut you and grab the work by cutting corners. Even my local high street installers ignore the regulations. Also bear in mind that a significant number of London properties are let and landlords rarely want or have the money to pay for quality work.
I suggest you stay within software......from someone that also came from that particular industry believe me when I say it was a piece of cake sitting in front of a PC all day compared with the agro this job throws up. The pay in the gas industry is actually pretty poor....(the roques may earn well) but many installers would earn more driving a bus.
I suggest you stay within software......from someone that also came from that particular industry believe me when I say it was a piece of cake sitting in front of a PC all day compared with the agro this job throws up. The pay in the gas industry is actually pretty poor....(the roques may earn well) but many installers would earn more driving a bus.
I am often somewhat critical of people but now that you have belatedly given us some more relevant information, I can start to be more critical of you.
You originally gave us very little informatiion at all about yourself and I therefore thought that you were not very clever or educated. I now learn that you have a degree in Computer science! Congratulations, you cannot be that stupid!
As someone with a degree, and one presumes "A" levels, I do expect much more of you. Why then is it that you dont use a capital "I" instead of the small "i" ?
Furthermore how do you write so many lines without any paragraphs?
It is clear to me that however good you are with computers, you are hopeless with English grammar! In my opinion you did not deserve to even get on the uni course !
As you are planning to move to London, you would obviously be undercutting us if I trained you so ( unless you bought my business! ) I could not risk training you as you would just be undercuting us.
This afternoon I saw a very shoddy boiler installation. The Landlord said he was CORGI but I doubt it. It cost £250 whereas we charge £840.
However as the installer did not clean the system, the pump had worn out after just five months and that cost the landlord another £149 for us to replace it. Its a further problem for him because no one would issue a CP12 because its in such a state.
Tony
PS In asian culture the lady is expected to move to join the man!
I would issue a CP12 because a CP12 is only an inspection of the gas installation at a given moment in time. It doesn't matter what it says on the CP12 so long as the job is left with all unsafe items labelled with warning notices issued and capped off where necessary.
The business is not necessarily in a bad state. I have 25 installations prebooked at the moment, we can't take on any more jobs in the next 6 weeks. And they are all private customers.
We have two 3rd year apprentices, one of whom will be gas registered by Christmas. I can then send him out on his own in a new shiney van to earn a good wage. I can trust him, and he has the confidence in himself, because he has worked alongside our skilled men for the last 3years. He has seen problems crop up, and has been shown how to solve them. The day release helps put the practical experience into context.
Bhamsamir, on the other hand, would be no use to us for 3-5 yrs. He wants to start earning as soon as he has his gas, but we simply cannot afford the risk of him learning on the job with our real customers, who have paid a good price for a quality job. Its all very well passing your ACS, but you have to know what being a plumber is about, too.
Unfortunately the gas industry is saturated with people with little practical experience or ability. The best route for them is to approach council contractors, they mainly do servicing day in day out on the same equipment. I suggest Bhamsamir looks at this option to start. If he is better than the others he can always rise above them when he knows what he is doing.
If there are any good South London, Surrey, Kent installers out there looking to move job, we have a job advertised in www.monster.com at the moment.
We have two 3rd year apprentices, one of whom will be gas registered by Christmas. I can then send him out on his own in a new shiney van to earn a good wage. I can trust him, and he has the confidence in himself, because he has worked alongside our skilled men for the last 3years. He has seen problems crop up, and has been shown how to solve them. The day release helps put the practical experience into context.
Bhamsamir, on the other hand, would be no use to us for 3-5 yrs. He wants to start earning as soon as he has his gas, but we simply cannot afford the risk of him learning on the job with our real customers, who have paid a good price for a quality job. Its all very well passing your ACS, but you have to know what being a plumber is about, too.
Unfortunately the gas industry is saturated with people with little practical experience or ability. The best route for them is to approach council contractors, they mainly do servicing day in day out on the same equipment. I suggest Bhamsamir looks at this option to start. If he is better than the others he can always rise above them when he knows what he is doing.
If there are any good South London, Surrey, Kent installers out there looking to move job, we have a job advertised in www.monster.com at the moment.
B
bhamsamir
it's evident alot of people are here to pick holes and weaknesses in everyone because theyve been in the trade for 30 years or some crap. to the person who feels ive got bad grammar - for gods sake get a life, this isnt a dissertation its a forum. and in asian cultures the women come to the men??? where else are they going to go? she'll be living with me and thats that. the gas trade isnt as bad as all these old crusty farts seem to make out on here, theyre just getting stubborn with old age. thanks to the genuine people on here for all their advice...
bhamsamir: - Once again someone says something that a OP doesn't like and they turn nasty, its as simple as i have already said you want some one to train you so you can undercut and compete with them! - Why would they want to bother?
You should of saved the money you wasted on the course because the attitude doesn't help you and after all people are closing ranks, we are not taking on anyone and i know no company in my local area taking an apprentice this year, we get half a dozen calls a week from recently qualified ACS receivers wanting to work with us so they can get there own corgi why on earth would anyone do this?Where is the incentive?
You say you'll work for free but your free work, has a hiderence on the helper and thus will probably end up costing them £200 a week in lost revenue without insurance and H&S
You should of saved the money you wasted on the course because the attitude doesn't help you and after all people are closing ranks, we are not taking on anyone and i know no company in my local area taking an apprentice this year, we get half a dozen calls a week from recently qualified ACS receivers wanting to work with us so they can get there own corgi why on earth would anyone do this?Where is the incentive?
You say you'll work for free but your free work, has a hiderence on the helper and thus will probably end up costing them £200 a week in lost revenue without insurance and H&S
You are showing your inexperience now. You think that you already know everything. But we also know that the inexperienced dont realise just how little they know. You may be able to do a tightness test and a few other simple tasks but how would you fare mending a fault on a gas fire or combi boiler?
Clearly you have low standards but I expect all our communications with customers to be correctly written in proper English. That is how the world judges you!
Neither Simon nor I have been in this industry over 10 years by the way!
The next time you are in London you could come with me to a customer and show me just how well you can diagnose a boiler fault if you like.
Tony
N
namsag
Bhamsamir. Its quite simple the people who sold you the course will tell you anything . It was not Reactfast by any chance
There is loads of work out there
We will give you all the knowledge you need
You wil be able to hit the ground running
Yes people are desperate for free labour so will help train you
Na don`t worry its not that hard a job and you won`t kill anyone
You will earN 30k more or less straight away rising to 100k.
Why do they tell you this SIMPLE you paid them thousands of pounds for training that is worth jack.
4weeks is a complete and utter joke.
We used to do 2 months minimum on each type of appliance in theory and practical at college/training centre and then go and put it into practise for 4/5 weeks in peoples houses under supervision of an engineer.
And then back to tech etc for next appliance type and so on for 3 years and then spend rest of your working life learning.
I can see why you are getting angry but you are getting angry at the wrong people your anger should be directed at the people who charged you thousands for a fairy tale.
There is loads of work out there
We will give you all the knowledge you need
You wil be able to hit the ground running
Yes people are desperate for free labour so will help train you
Na don`t worry its not that hard a job and you won`t kill anyone
You will earN 30k more or less straight away rising to 100k.
Why do they tell you this SIMPLE you paid them thousands of pounds for training that is worth jack.
4weeks is a complete and utter joke.
We used to do 2 months minimum on each type of appliance in theory and practical at college/training centre and then go and put it into practise for 4/5 weeks in peoples houses under supervision of an engineer.
And then back to tech etc for next appliance type and so on for 3 years and then spend rest of your working life learning.
I can see why you are getting angry but you are getting angry at the wrong people your anger should be directed at the people who charged you thousands for a fairy tale.
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