Plumber Training -intensive courses ??

[Soggy_weetabix]

I dont want to be a party pooper but plumbing is stuffed to the brim with plumbers at the moment, wages depressed, work getting harder to find, more legislation than ever to contend with AND a huge amount of foriegn labour to compete with

Them polskis wont change a heat exchanger, and wouldnt know an 'O' ring to put in the old Concords if it was pickled and served with vodka.

Bring on the Ideal E Types! Im the olny b*gger that loves em! Gas Valves and heat exchangers are me 2 favourites.

I have a niche (probably a bad one) but boy it pays dem der bills.

Dave

 

[Sider]

Jack_s wrote

What do you think of training to be a plumber this way ??
.

Not much. Have you considered the cowboy route.
I went into domestic plumbing with sweet fa as regards qualifications.
To be honest I find domestic water/heating systems a bit diy.
My background was specialised industrial pipefitting.
I left all that behind me to behind me to become a builders labourer and digger driver.
I take home £700 weekly and have a company van to drive.
When I drive off the site in the evenings at 5:30 work is behind me.
Domestic plumbing installation cant touch this. At least not in my area anyway.

 

[corgiman]

Here here

too many of us

and very very few of em worth a toss

its a fast track to the bankruptcy courts, leave it, I have got approx twenty years experiance and am having to work all the hours god sends to make ends meet

its sucks

I am off to poland, apparantly there is a serious shortage of plumbers there

 

[jack_s]

An ex-IT chap in my road, 43, has just started doing a fast-track course leading to NVQ2 in a few months. Seems to be doing a couple of days at the training place then a break then a test...

He's been doing it a couple of months now. He's doing bathrooms, changing rads etc. He's already booked 3 weeks ahead, charging £320/day, £1250/week.

London is cheap @ 350 a day Youll be lucky to get that in a week in Sussex

I take home £700 weekly and have a company van to drive.
When I drive off the site in the evenings at 5:30 work is behind me.
Domestic plumbing installation cant touch this. At least not in my area anyway.

Sounds like you plumbers are making a fortune, if a newbie can make this !!

Some people seem to be making a mint, others are saying it's not so great.

-What's the truth, or does it depend where you are in country ??
-Is it grass is greener elsewhere syndrome & there must be easier ways to make a living ??

 

[Sider]

Chris R wrote

He's been doing it a couple of months now. He's doing bathrooms, changing rads etc. He's already booked 3 weeks ahead, charging £320/day, £1250/week

I see this figure put about quite often on forums.
However the guy is self employed and as such has costs like a van to run and pay for, insurance to pay, parking fee,s to pay , sundries to purchase etc.
Plus I doubt if he has his evenings off. If he is a one man band he will be very busy indeed doing estimates , invoices and site visits etc.

 

[Paul Barker]

You are absolutely right Sider, for every hour on the job acruing income there are two off the job not acruing a penny. For every tool on the job earning a wage there are 29 at the lockup acruing depreciation charges.

Then lets look at vans. I have two, they cost £1,000 each to mot this year the insurance is £400 plus each, the depreciation charge and opportunity cost of what the money would have earned me elsewhere has to be accounted for.

Then lets look at analysers. My first one cost me £600 worked very badly for a year then I sent it for callibration it came back worse than ever and eventually ceased to function at all. I emailed the folk who supplied and callibrated it the replay was a stock letter stating if I sent it back with another £65 they would callibrate it again.. I took it out of their hands and sent it elsewhere 6 weeks later they still have it and I have the flat response of I'll chase it up every time I phone.

So in the mean time as I need an analyser to be an Alpha service engineer I had no alternative than to buy yet another. (I totally recommend the BW Gasprobe it does all you need on a modern boiler without making a hell of a racket and all the buttons respond first touch. I totally dis the Kane 400 which is hellish noisy, the buttons are useless, and the machine is not durable hence my predicament and the backup service is of a quality I could never offer my customers or I would be broke...)

Then we have to look at electrical test equipment £700 then callibration £100 and another 5 weeks winging it without a tester while they leisurely go about their callibration task. Impossible for the self employed. I asked at local electrical factors and 4 weeks is considrered pretty good turnaround yes!!

Then we must consider essential memberships (there are many non essentials some of us prefer also to be a part of) corgi and an electrical certifying body.

Not to mention the cost of training.

Basically it isn't worth starting out. Unless something is done to ensure that only the legitimate can trade and so accrue a respectable wage to cover these costs it is a trade not even worth remaining in. It is most definately not worth joining. You would need a minimum of 10k to start up.

If we could turn the clock back to a time when a flame picture was a sign of satisfactory performance and we were trusted with sufficient ability to wire up a boiler, then yes it is a good trade.

 

[Nige F]

I`m serious about Sussex It WAS good once but it`s shyte now and all that happens is the roads get more busy Thank Flux I`m retired

 

[Paul Barker]

I rogot about the £1300 bill to have my gearbox repaired.

That is counterbalanced by the customer wgo has now bounced their £1250 cheque twice, and the 3 or 4 customers of £1500 to £2500 jobs who are taking four weeks to pay minimum. The young couple with a new baby for whom I went straight round and fixed their boiler because of the new born but they haven't paid the £190 bill which includes a new gas valve that cost me £140. The list is endless. The popular opinion that plumbers are making too much money has lead to open season on not paying plumbers.

 

[mah]

last year the college im doing a two year one day a week coarse ,tried an 18 week fast track for 24 year old and unders, some of the lads iv spoken to have had to find jobs in other industrys,because no one was willing to take on fast trackers,and thats the opinion of the lads who did this coarse,that it was a waste of time.

 

[corgiman]

here here

I know my guv'nor wont entertain em

 

[Paul Barker]

I have a slow tracker at the moment, he seems to be developing OK, wish he'd stop asking where we are going next all the time and I'm trying to not get anoyed when he clanks my tools while I'm trying to conscentrate, but he can now put ptfe on the right way round and doesn't muller all the bleed valves any more. I think he'll be alright after the 4 years.

 

[2scoops0406]

jack_s, don't give up on the IT industry, it's booming at the moment, why don't you take some short IT related courses, then you'll just have to blag it on the CV I don't agree with you that the industry is ageist, there are few young people wanting to enter the industry 'cos the work is perceived as either difficult or boring. Best of luck.

 

[corgiman]

I have a slow tracker at the moment, he seems to be developing OK, wish he'd stop asking where we are going next all the time and I'm trying to not get anoyed when he clanks my tools while I'm trying to conscentrate, but he can now put ptfe on the right way round and doesn't muller all the bleed valves any more. I think he'll be alright after the 4 years.

awww you gotta love em