Should You Become a Plumber / Gas Engineer / Apprenticeship v Fast Track Plumbing

plumber training should i become a plumber should i retrain as a plumber these are questions um keep getting asked over and over again so i thought i'd put a video together for you and and try and answer as many of them questions as i can my name's alan hart and i've been a plumber now for 30 years and yeah it's a long time um and over the years i've had lots of people work with me in the days when i used to work for british gas i used to get a lot of the new trainees and they used to come and work with me for a little while before they used to go out by the self and also since having my own business i also let a lot of a lot of the people contact me i get loads and loads of people i mean i've had six people this week contact me asking me if they can come and work with me so i get lots of people that want to come and work with me um and i want to just try and answer some of the questions before you spend a big bang of money on um going on these training courses and and things like that so just to try and see if if this job is right for you and and what you're gonna do after if you do qualify what you're gonna do um are you gonna get a job are you gonna go self-employed um if you got self-employed how much you're gonna charge the costs involved in getting vans and insurances and all things like that so i just wanted to go through as much of that information in this video as possible just to try and give you a bit of knowledge before before you before you take the plunge well that's easy or what um right i'm gonna put some notes i'm gonna write some notes down here um yeah let's have a look try before you buy so what i'd advise first first of all before you do anything else is go try out being a plumber so see if there's anybody local that you can go and do some laboring some free labouring and and see if if that type of work suits you and if you like to get your hands mucky and if you like to do like lifting floorboards up and and and things like that so as i said try before you buy before you before you invest all your time and invest all your money in training the last thing you'd want to do is if you even as an apprentice you won't want to go and spend two years three years i don't know what the apprenticeship is these days but you want to spend all that time and then after you've done all that realize that it's not actually the job for you and and same if you're doing if you're retraining you may be maybe you're in the army or something like that now and you want to you want to do plumbing you know try and if you can go and work with somebody even if you've got to go work for free go and offer to work with somebody labor for free for a few weeks and just make sure that it's the right job for you so now you've decided after you've done your research that you want to be a plumber and there's different options for you to train to be a plumber so you could do an apprenticeship and we'll talk a little bit about that first and then we'll talk about your older style um retrainee type route um we'll talk about that as well um so normally as an apprentice you you do an apprenticeship when you're 16 17 sort of age i'm not sure if there's an age limit on it these days there might not be um with all these age discrimination acts and things like that so there might not be i'm not sure you'd have to speak to your local college or speak to a local employer and see if you could do an apprenticeship the benefits of doing an apprenticeship and working for somebody at the same time obviously you're gonna get paid as you go you're also gonna get knowledge um from from the training in college but also on the job as well you've also you're gonna get you're gonna get a recognized qualification so you're going to get an apprenticeship um you'll receive or you could receive government funding as well apprenticeships so that's a little bit about apprenticeships and that that's the route that i took when i came into the industry my background was my first job i worked as a plumber and i sent out in in those days i sent out letters to lots and lots of companies um and eventually i got i got a job and then i went to college and i did my apprenticeship and that's how i got into the trade now the other option is if you want to retrain if you want to be what some people call a fast tracker um and there's different options with that as well with a fast tracking rule i wanted to ask gear um or look into what you're going to do so if you're going to do the fast tracking route once you're qualified what's your what's your plans are you wanting to get a job are you wanting to go self-employed so i want to look more more into that as well with the fast track real but we'll we'll have a look at fast track now so if we just do a quick google for fast track plumbing fast track plumbing courses and there's loads of adverts in here and you i'm not affiliated with any of these training providers so you'd have to do your own research just click into this viva viva training academy i'm not affiliated with these in any way as i say you'd have to do your own research so this says join our fast track gas safe courses seven reasons we are number one in the uk so it gives you a bit of information about them in there but as i say i would look look at all the different providers and see what suits you fast track plumber or fast track gas engineer even with any whichever um is it possible to do a fast track course and then be a fully competent plumber gas engineer in my opinion the answer to that is a definite no there may be you know in extreme cases that somebody goes on one of them courses and they come out and they know exactly what they're doing i've been a gas engineer as i've said already for 30 years and for me every day is a school day and you're always learning so going on one of them courses enables you to start the learning process and and learn as you go the good thing the good thing we've got now is the so much on the internet so go on one of them training courses and then go on um youtube channel go on people's youtube channel so i've personally done loads and loads of videos to do with gas and plumbing and central eating and all things like that if you look on plumber parts plumber parts has done hundreds of videos on plumbing and some of them videos are really really good and there's other people that's done um plumbing videos as well so spend some time and and look at all them videos and also once you've come out once you've got your qualification try and go on as many manufacturer training courses as possible so companies like ideal ideal might do a free trading course on their boilers or worcester the worcester training courses are normally very good to be honest um back say baxi also do some training courses and they'll do fault finding courses they'll do wiring so you can learn go and do some wiring learn how to wire s plans and y plans and so as i said go on as many of them training days as you can so now you you're gonna you you you've trained you're a plumber what what are you gonna do now are you gonna be able to get a job now this is in most cases from what i see people end up having to start their own business because there's not as many jobs available as as all these training providers make out so again do your own research and just check that you don't want to spend one two three years training and then not be able to get a job so just check that that you're gonna be able to get a job at the end of it and it may be that you have to go work for less money with people to get some more experience and that's what people do people come with me sometimes people come with me that are qualified but the they're not up to speed yet and that takes that takes some time it takes years in some cases as i say me 30 years and i'm still learning you know every day we're learning and and improving ourself so so we've we've done that now we've decided that we can't get a job right so let's for this example we can't get a job we're going to set up in business now what do we do and i just want to show you if you have a look at this here now this is a youtube video and it's from the small business toolbox youtube channel and it's really really good for how much should you charge how low rates if you're self-employed and you can type in with that it'll show you all the different options and how much you should be charging often what happens is people start a new business and and they don't charge enough and that's a little bit better to go work for someone else so that i would really recommend you go and have a look at that channel all about charging and how much things cost and one thing that i've learned is you can't be cheap and stay in business unless you have no no overheads at all but so you need to balance that so like i say it's that video is really really interesting to watch so go and have a look at that do some research into even if you're fully qualified go and have a look at that because i i i i watched it from start to finish and i thought it was brilliant um yeah i hope this um is of some use to you this style of video if you've got any questions please ask them in the comments below this channel now we we get a lot of plumbers and new trainees and um etc watching this channel and and a lot of them people are really happy to to help you know that they put comments in below so so if you put a comment below then hopefully all the community can help each other and and other plumbers and apprentices and people that are training can also give their experiences below and yeah and just all all learn together and as i say this this video it's just my opinion i've had a lot of new recruits come with me over years and some of them have gone on to do really amazing things and you know they've really excelled in employment and you can do really really well in plumbing um i do see all these where you can earn underground a year and stuff like that but i haven't managed to achieve that just yet but you never know um yeah um i'm babbling on again now i um yeah as i say if you've got any questions please ask them below i'm happy to do a follow-up video if if if need be also if there's any other gas engineers or plumbers and and if you if you do you know if you're really good at your job and you want to promote your business i'm happy to do i'll i'm happy to come to you i'm happy to do a video and show customers what you do so again get in contact put some comments below again if you're a plumbing company feel free to add some links to your business below it'll help with google and and promote your business as well so all we can do just to support each other raise the standards in the industry as well so obviously if i come out to jobs where you know you're a plumber and you do really good work and you want to show off to the world then by putting on my channel you're gonna get you're gonna get instant recognition for that so um i did a job i did one recently with olivia plummer with john really really good guy and he's already had free jobs from from doing that video so it's really worthwhile and as i say it'll help you google as well so if you're a plumbing company get in touch if you're the trainee um as well you know oh all we can do is well picture put some comments below yeah thanks for watching i did do another video which was apprentice plumber training central heating day one and in that video there's quite a lot of questions on there so please feel free to go and have a look on that video and and comment comment and answer some of them questions if you could um people asking would love to come and learn from you in person one day um it's just some really interesting stuff um alarm engineer makes me want to be a plumber um good to see you passing knowledge on great work a lot of these people are actually plumbers um as well so you know it's really it's really good to have that feedback so let's see if you could put them comments below put a comment below um it just helps helps everybody really um really enjoyed that i'll two cracking lads great future as well so yeah you can have a great future can you get some uh can you get some t-shirts printed with your mug on it underneath hello my name is elena no i don't think that's ever gonna happen to be honest i'm not that vain to do that um uh plumber in london ex lancashire glad to see you teaching plumbing and heating to kids yeah i'm just trying to pass knowledge on um my boss didn't show me how to hang a rad he told me uh yeah um yeah so there's lots of questions on that i'm thinking about becoming a plumber so this helped a lot thanks um yeah as i say go click on that go click on that video have a look at that apprentice plumber training day one and there's there's lots and lots of questions on there that might help you and might you know it might might make you you know want to come and be a plumber you can you can do really well our plumbing you know but you've got to put the effort in it's not just you're not just going to go on a course and be a plumber you need it's an ongoing hey up buddy uh also plumbers.org in bedford so again people putting their website websites into my videos and i'm very happy for you to do that if i can promote your business that's great you know i've no problem with that at all as a retired plumbing and heating engineer i find your videos interesting thank you very much for that um lots and lots of comments on there so as i say bob over to that video and have a look at that as well and you may that may help you

Channel: Allen Hart

Views: 50,564

Keywords: plumber, plumbing apprenticeship, apprentice plumber, plumbing apprentice, Should You Become a Plumber, plumbing training, plumbing apprenticeship uk, fast track plumber, fast track plumbing, how to be a plumber, how to get started in plumbing, how to become a plumber, plumber apprentice, Viva Training, how to plumbing, apprentice plumber tips

Id: sx538iI6rys

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Wed May 20 2020