Plumbing & Heating Professionals....help please.

[wayneski]

Hmmmmm...some helpful comments and some from people who are either angry at the world or disillusioned.

Gasguru.....everything you buy in your trade from Grundfos pumps to Heatline accessories is because someone marketed the product and someone sold it into a merchants. If you advertise in Yellow Pages, have a sign-written van...you're selling yourself so you're a parasite too. Thanks for your comments, they've been most constructive

I am not looking to do this because it's fashionable......I am looking to do it so that I have a skill and can be self-reliant. I can understand how some people would resent new-comers...let's face it, most of the plumbers who I've dealt with can't answer the phone properly, can't return calls, can't turn-up on time to give a quote, can't present themselves properly, can't come back to do the work...no wonder some people fear new-comers trying to make a better life for themselves whilst bringing some basic standards to the industry.

Sorry, I originally posted asking for some advice...with a couple of exceptions all I've got is negativity.

 

[Soggy_weetabix]

Its not negavitity, its reality!

99 per cent of my work is from reccomendation.

Courses like that will teach you a lot...but one thing you cannot be taught is experience. This counts for a hell of a lot.

Radiator valves is a start agreed, but what do you do with twin entry rad vlvs?

Blocked cold feeds?

David

 

[wayneski]

That's why I want to learn and learn properly. I'm all for "reality" which is why I'm asking you guys about the best way to get qualified....what I didn't ask for is "don't do it" with some purile rubbish about Sales & Marketing.

No one's offered me even a most basic answer about how to go about getting started so I guess that sums it up.

 

[John Wayne]

Hmmmmm...some helpful comments and some from people who are either angry at the world or disillusioned. .

Me im disillusioned, 28 years i have been in this game and i still hate it.

If you advertise in Yellow Pages,

That will be you first big mistake

let's face it, most of the plumbers who I've dealt with can't answer the phone properly, can't return calls, can't turn-up on time to give a quote, can't present themselves properly, can't come back to do the work..

1. They are probalay to busy
2. There are certain customers that you avoid like the plague
3. Sometimes you cant be arsed

Sorry, I originally posted asking for some advice...with a couple of exceptions all I've got is negativity.

Welcome to DIYnot..Softus will be along soon. He`ll sort you out

Must go the horses need mucking out.

 

[wayneski]

John Wayne...real name Marion

 

[John Wayne]

John Wayne...real name Marion

Wayne, Surname Carr

 

[wayneski]

ooohhh......that's original!

 

[gas4you]

The stuff you will learn at any proper college will be basic text book plumbing and plumbing regs, enough to pass exams and do simple jobs. They will not teach you about 'real world' faults and problems, these will only be dealt with as and when you come across them and hopefully apply basic logic.

No matter what training you do it will be a hard shock when you enter the real world of plumbing, I know, I done it. From working for years as a 'plumbers mate' so to speak to taking my gas certificates and immediatley going it alone as I didn't want the pressure of an employer saying 'why have you only done 3 or 4 services today, we expected 8!

I took my time, started off on new build as a subby then moved over to refurbs etc about 6 months later. That first year was the steepest learning curve I've ever heard of or come across. I made it and have not looked back since and now I am too busy with recommendations etc for work.

It can be done, but there are a lot of sacrifices, monetary and family wise to put up with, you certainly need a very, very supportive partner, if you haven't then forget it! Mine always jokes that 'You said you would be home at 5, when I arrive at 9 Worst one was I promised her I would take a half day and said I would definitley be home at midday. I got home a 7 that evening. Mine is supportive, but could yours cope with situations such as this.

Yes times are tight for plumbers/gas engineers and generally this is not a good time to embark on a career change to our industry, but if you have the drive and will to succeed then you will somehow.

I know the above are not answers for you, but I hope to instill some insight into the unseen and unheard of side to plumbing/gas work.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I do sympathise, I really do, but:

C&G would require me to be out on site working a minimum of 3 days a week to gain my NVQ 2 (not easy when you have a full time job and mortgage).

This would be the same if you had to retrain for any profession; not just plumbing and heating.

I went straight into the industry after leaving University - so effectively with nothing but common sense. I worked for a small firm who paid me the most basic living wage that allowed me to rent a single room in a maissonette on a coucnil estate in London. I had to live like that for 3 or 4 years before I was able to earn enough (and subsequently take over my Uncles plumbing business) and rent a decent flat.

Thank fully now I have a mortgage, but one hell of a long commute because I still can't afford London and have to live a long way up the A1 in order to have reasonable sized house and garden. In fact now, I couldn't afford to buy my own house and that is in just under two years.

Sacrifices need to be had. If I needed to move to a different industry how would I re-train and pay my mortgage? I doubt very much I'd get much help.

 

[Dan Robinson]

also wouldn't expect to be earning decent money even after NVQ3. It teaches you very little about real world problems.

Bathrooms and new installs maybe, but from my experience of NVQ3 attainees (3 or 4 who have been tried out) only one was worth employing; and that was more due to natural ability and dedication rather than what he had learnt. I wqas very sorry to loose him as he started his own business up North with a new family.

Ironically an engineer of mine who is now an NVQ teacher had to spend a fair bit of time getting this chap OUT of the college mindset.


Jamie - if your reading - get yur ass back down here!!!!
I owe you a CIS25 TPV

 

[simond]

wayneski

I think you are blinkered by your ambitious idea. You call it negativity, we are trying to bring some reality.

We do write quotes, return phone calls, have signwritten vans etc. I have two people permanently in our office 8-5pm just to do the organising and customer care. My team are collectively qualified to take on anything from a power station to a small house. My firm won the best signwriting design for the whole of UK in 2004 for my vehicles.

Your S&M experience (!) won't count for much because many of us have that background. We are not all knuckle draggers in this industry, there are some very smart operators.

What you need is five years experience working with a skilled heating engineer. You are unlikely to get that because you want to start earning in five weeks enough to support you, and also, there are very few of us who want an adult apprentice tagging along to our jobs.

In the view of a skilled tradesman, you might be considered to be a burden, who will have one eye on taking over some of his customers as soon as you consider yourself capable.

We look to take on two types of people;

-young apprentices who can demonstrate existing practical abilities and honesty. We can sponsor them through college and give them work experience.
- adult heating technicians with over 5 yrs experience who can think for themselves

Adult trainees are just not in demand. If you are determined, take a £5K course and get cracking. Prove us wrong and show us how its done.

 

[Dan Robinson]

And it can be done - don't forget that. How you do it is more down to morals, and of course there WILL be someone out there willing to take you on. Some, like me have been bitten badly and simply can afford the risk again. Others are big enough to absorb it or like the challenge.

How your homelife is supported both financially and emotionally is not the employer's worry.

 

[Gasguru]

Gasguru..... If you advertise in Yellow Pages, have a sign-written van...you're selling yourself so you're a parasite too.

Nope all work is from recomendations as you will find with most of the regulars on here. Never advertised or ever intend to. Probably 90% of your work comes from 10% of your customers.

The ads in yellow pages and the like are by and large reserved for the cowboys.

If I come across as negative I'm telling you as it is. Morale in the industry is at an all time low....there's too many people in the industry, too many with little experience, too many cowboys, a huge increase in regulations that are not enforced (that you with a conscience will comply with and become uncompetitive), the appalling quality of products, the vast amount of non compliant products customers want you to fit, an increasing number of cowboy customers (asset rich/cash poor), arrogant property developers with no experience, cheap unqualified migrant labour, all the other illegal workers and so on.

The goverment and others are hell bent on training, go on a course and you're and expert. Garbage. Experience is just as important and probably more so in this game. I betcha they don't tell you how duel syphonic pans operate on your 5K course or how a Hydra Spartan setup works. How about a RAVI KOVM valve on a pre-fab Harton or Elson cistern.

I strongly urge you to think of another career for the sake of your family.

 

[yerino]

If you would be willing to work for 100 quid a week like the 16 and 17 year old apprentices you would get a job in no time.

So, it is not just based upon young lads/ladies but they are willing to work for little to gain the experience needed to be a GOOD plumber and encounter real life problems, which you will not learn at college!

 

[Agile]

What a lot of good advice! Unfortunately he calls it negative when it does not fit in with what he would like to hear.

Anyone who retrains for a new career has to expect to spend three years at uni or similar with no earnings! Its no different int he plumbing trade.

OK some firms would take you on as an adult trainee at £100 per week I suppose if you were really lucky. However to have any chance of proper practical training you need to be able to support yourself to do unpaid work experience for 2-3 days a week with a real expert for about 2-3 years to gain the experience you would need to tackle most jobs.

If you expect to be paid then you have to have commercially useful skills. The firm needs to be able to get useful work out of you. A paper certificate means virtually nothing! its the practical experience that matters.

Tony