Plumbing & Central Heating

[Amateur Plumber]

I am currently studying for a Plumbing Certificate at college (part time). My aim is to get into the business as soon as possible. I tried to do the NVQ course but I was told that I had to be working in the trade in order to do the NVQ2 and in any case, I have to finish the plumbing certificate first.
Does anyone know first of all how long the NVQ2 takes and what is involved in it and also going beyond that, how do I do the gas training & assessment. I was told that you can pay £3000 to go on a gas course but this seems a little excessive. Anyone able to shed some light?

 

[ollski]

I did my NVQ2 in plumbing in 9 months going to college for 18 hours a week and towards the end made myself a bit of pocket money by doing small jobs I was confident with which gave that bit of real world experience, then went full time self employed. Looking back I was very disappointed with the course...too much lead work for me I was never going to use.

I went to work for British Gas after this as a trainee and then got my NVQ2 & 3 in gas servicing and maintenance which was a much tougher and steeper course and probably learnt more in the first month than the entire 9 month NVQ2.

Your problem lies in the fact that you now can't take the NVQ's or the ACS exams without work experience even if you do pay £3000. The problem with that being that nobody wants to hand out work experience because as soon as you get it you will bu$%er off and work in competition with those who gave it you. Maybe someone here can tell you a way around it but I can't see one

 

[peter anderson]

Hi I'm in the second year of the plumbing nvq. Ours was the last year to be accepted without workiing in the trade. No-one in my group has been able to find work experience with a plumber, even working unpaid. But then again almost all of us are older than 30.

CORGI have changed their rules in the past few months so that you have to have had at least a couple of years experience working with a corgi registered person before you can be registered yourself. So I'm not sure it would be a good idea to pay 3000 for a course. Better to try and find work as an apprentice maybe

I'm hoping to become self-employed at the end of my course but I'm qute surprised how difficult it is to find customers. I've been in the yellow pages for two months and I haven't had one call! when my course is finished I will have to try advertising in a variety of places

Pete

 

[ollski]

peter the only advertising that ever worked for me was a parish magazine...evrything else came word of mouth.

 

[taydo]

yes i get mine from a local free newspaper then word of mouth if im passing a shop i pop a card in the window

 

[peter anderson]

can I just add that after I put my name in the yellow pages i got about 2 or 3 calls every day from businesses wanting my plumbing business to employ their services and 4 letters from potential apprentices.

 

[ChrisR]

I've just come back from a week away and I have 19 messages wanting me to do work. I've never advertised. Word of mouth happens as soon as you start doing things. It isn't your 100% knowledge or speed or ability that gets you work - ultimately it's your attitude.

I've tried using helpers of various calibres. All very difficult. Minimum age 30 in future!
I did plumbing and learned very little from the course cos I 'd been playing with houses for years and could read a book. I did the corgi exams with no experience whatsoever. Very easy if you've got enough upstairs for a bunch of GCSE good grades. Now you need work experience for corgi registration which is a good thing - only once I did something potentially dangerous through lack of experience, but I didn't have to earn a lot so could take my time and find things out. Different if you have a family to support.

Anyone can do plumbing for bathrooms etc There's a 1 day water regs course which is worth doing. (see the WRAS or bpec sites)

If you want to be corgi eg just for say boilers it isn't 2 years. Check with corgi, or the gwinto site, or thegasplace site. Also some on ges-news site.

I think it's going to be a major problem on the gas side - nobody will freely give the experience so there will be few new people. Eg you need something like 2-3 months of experience on say Warm Air systems (sorry, too lazy to check the period). I saw my first warm air system the morning before the corgi assessment - when I saw my second. Since then I've done a handful of Landlords Checks on them, over the last 3-4 years, but I'm deemed to be competent. It's a farce.

There will be wholesale fabrication of "evidence of work", in my view.

 

[Amateur Plumber]

Thanks guys you have been a great help.
I am over 30 and I do have a family to feed so I guess a bit of part-time work at weekends is the way forward, then just see where it takes me.
It seems that word of mouth is also the best advert you can get

 

[masona]

It seems a shame when we are so short of plumbers in the UK and this government is doing nothing to help.They are killing the building trades and making people go to University instead of couraging the building trades which therefore bring more cowboys with no trade qualification.

 

[ChrisR]

Yes. There's been a phase of it being too easy to get in (which is when I joined!) now its going too far the other way again. BUt whatever they do there will always be cowboys in the trade, and diy'ers who DO do a good job.