BTEC HND/HNC and BA Hons Degree Building Services Engineering

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BTEC HND/HNC and BA Hons Degree Building Services Engineering

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Aqua Mechanica

Hi,

Will be studying this next september, I wanted to prep myself and wondered if anyone had any recommendations on reading material that would be of use, textbooks, etc.

Thank you

Ben Wood
 
Fair play to you Ben, a good investment for your future and a good way to escape the tools when your body cant hack it anymore.
 
Try a search on Amazon - JTL Plumbing brings up a few. Must admit I bought one a couple of years ago and didn't learn anything new and it doesn't really help you diagnose problems - more like waffle on how to react to customers and the various regulations. I think my book was NVQ Level 2. I'm guessing you have a better brain than me as you're going for a Degree (good luck!)

However ...

One book I find good (not 100% brilliant but very good) is Central Heating: Fault Finding and Repair by John Reginald. It's not cheap (around £25) but I know I'm not the only one on this forum who has a copy.

Another helpful book (all round) is the Readers Digest DIY Manual which gives a good overview to various domestic construction areas and covers a fair amount on plumbing issues too.
 
An HNC is a bit more advanced than the stuff needed for an NVQ! Mostly design with lots of calculations.

Ben Get yourself one of these.

[DLMURL="http://www.ciphe.org.uk/Professional/Publications/Plumbing-engineering-Services-Design-Guide/"]Plumbing Engineering Services Design Guide - CIPHE[/DLMURL]

It will give you a bit of an idea and covers a some of the stuff you will get.

Once on the course they will recommend / supply whatever books are most applicable.

Good luck and brush up on your maths;)
 
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Normally the college or uni will send you out a reading list prior to the start of the course.
 
tamz said:
An HNC is a bit more advanced than the stuff needed for an NVQ! Mostly design with lots of calculations.

Ben Get yourself one of these.

[DLMURL="http://www.ciphe.org.uk/Professional/Publications/Plumbing-engineering-Services-Design-Guide/"]Plumbing Engineering Services Design Guide - CIPHE[/DLMURL]

It will give you a bit of an idea and covers a some of the stuff you will get.

Once on the course they will recommend / supply whatever books are most applicable.

Good luck and brush up on your maths;)
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agreed the jtl books are worthless for HNC and above!!

the plumbing services guide is hard to follow, the greer book is good
 
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Hi. If your involvement in the trade to date is domestic plumbing and heating? I would strongly recommend trying to get site visits to large commercial contracts, where systems, materials, manpower and methods are on display. With the support of engineers to answer the inevitable questions that you will be compelled to ask. Your potential duty on completion of such a degree will require you to design and convey this to clients and labour. Reading books although a necessary part, is a small part in the overall skills required to fore fill your ambition. Good Luck
 
justlead1 said:
Hi. If your involvement in the trade to date is domestic plumbing and heating? I would strongly recommend trying to get site visits to large commercial contracts, where systems, materials, manpower and methods are on display. With the support of engineers to answer the inevitable questions that you will be compelled to ask. Your potential duty on completion of such a degree will require you to design and convey this to clients and labour. Reading books although a necessary part, is a small part in the overall skills required to fore fill your ambition. Good Luck
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not always possible and not essential, however it would help.

long hard road the HNC/HND are you familier with writting assignments? lots of them and long hard time consuming work
 
there alot of work required to get the HNC, even before thinking about a degree!
 
Cheers for the input, I'm after the books to prep myself, may have got the degree mixed up there but am focusing on the HND first.

Due to the course not starting till September, I thought I'd swat up until then so I am well prepared.

I have already got a book on Thermodynamics by Rayner Joel which is Awesome.

I would however like to up my maths and science and need some recommendations on good books for that if you know any.

I work for Skanska at a Hospital and have everything to hand when it comes to completing the HND.

I have to start with the Extended Degree Programme to get my Maths and Science to the level I need and then onto the HND. Afetr this I may aswell get the degree as it is just a further year. Masters Degree? Well, lets see when I get there, lol.

I am not familiar with writing assignments or this level of study but if someone else has done it, there's no reason why I can't do it, plus I'm a bit of a geek and egghead anyway, lol.

Thanks all
 
BTEC first mathematics for technicians by greer and taylor, i think theres further volumes for progressing. i bought it befor emy ONC and its good but tbh they give you the stuff you need so u dont need to refer to it so often

good luck.

im sure you can do it, just be aware of the difficulty of writting assignments to begin with, i strongly recommend working and looking inot that first
 
Cheers fuzzy, I will take that advice on board and all others.

I promise you I'm not taking this lightly, I know how hard it will be but dedication and effort will see me through. I'm 30 now and need to secure my future so I need to get it done.
 
ONC then HNC in construction and the built environment 2 years x 2 nights each. HND is a further year. The HNC is now a level 4, mine was the old level 5 and had more units. The current HND is a level 5. whats the extended degree programme? the onc(national certificate) i did is now the diploma
 
BSE has different optional units, the core 6 units are the same. i wanted to return to do the 4 BSE units but havnt had time
 
Because I left school to go straight into work, I never stayed on to do A-Levels, so the there is an year extension to the beginning of the degree to build a solid foundation of maths and science to start with.
 
To be honest, at 17, I had the brains to do it, but not the focus, now I have the focus :)
 
you would normally do a subsidairy diploma then a HNC and then a top up to HND and then a degree. HND is level 5 and therefore degree level but not a full degree. The route you suggest would normaly take 5 years on day release or 2 evenings a week, before you could even get to Uni for your degree
 
Oh and they recommended the book Foundation Maths by Tony Croft
 
Hi Mate

I'm new on here although i've followed threads in the past.

I stumbled across yours and had to add this.

I'm currently doing the course at leeds met and it is rock solid.

I managed to skip the foundation year due to past qualifications, vocational experience etc. However some of the lads on the course did the foundation year and found it no help what so ever!

I'm 38, Own firm, 75/25% domestic/commercial plumbing and heating. No real qualifications when i left school just a handful of GCSE's but loads of vocational stuff - gas, oil, electrics, NVQs H&S etc and so managed to get straight on the course. So it could be worth pushing them a bit to see if you could skip the foundation/bridge year.

Believe me, forget all that DIY and system design stuff that other guys recommend and get a maths tutor! Everyone on my course has one and that includes the guys that did the foundation year and the young lads not long out of college with A levels etc. The maths is HARD.

Take a look at Engineering Maths by John Bird and you'll get an idea. (dont bother buying it yet)

Equally, most of the Services Science work is maths based - Bernoulli, heat flow, sound attenuation, interstitial condensation all revolves around maths work & formulas etc.

The thing is, if you fail the maths (Analytical Methods) unit, you cant progress with the rest. You cant just carry on and re-sit the maths unit, it all stops and holds you up a year.

As Fuzzy? said, the rest of the stuff, you will be told when you get there. But if your looking to prep yourself, nail the maths.

Interestingly I still use Maths for Technicians by Greer too, although mine is the 1988 edition and could do with some updates but still a good reference.

A good place to start would be GCSE Mathematics Higher Level by CGP from Waterstones.

Dont be put off by the GCSE bit, its a good point to start from and get the basics. Gets you back into study mode and only costs a tenner.

Also, dont bother looking round plant rooms etc, there are lads on my course that are project managers & trainee design engineers for big outfits and wouldnt know how to get into a plant room. I guess thats just a sign of the times.

Just so your aware, I do 09.00 - 18.00 day release, plus most nights and weekends involve some form of assignment work. I'm enjoying it but be prepared for some hard work.

Good Luck.
 
Basically degrees tend to equip you with the theoretical knowledge required to do a job. In other words you will require stuff on the likes of Bernoulli's theorems and so on. All these are useful in designing systems, but maths is a big part of it. Although being fair now days they use calculators and computer programs so all you really need to do is concentrate on the theories. Its interesting stuff at the higher level but not really Plumbing.

Lets be honest, Plumbers are usually only vaguely interested in materials and principles at perhaps the molecular level not the sub atomic. Simply because you don't need to know what a bath is made of at the molecular level to fit it. Even central heating sizing is now just plonking in room sizes and construction materials as well as a few other details on a PC pressing a button and out comes the results. No more working out resistivity, cold bridging, thermal lose and so on on a piece of paper. Hooray!!!!

I would tend to look toward Physics for the sort of stuff you need. Also management seems to be part of most things now and so perhaps you should consider looking toward management processes as well.
 
HNC/D are not vocational quals, they are not hands on. If your looking to upskill practically these are not the courses, level 3 is the highest you can go in plumbing. There is a level 4 NVQ but its a bit more general and looks at managing BS etc.
I would really recommend doing a NHC/D, they are tuff but intersting, it widens your scope, you think differently, can communicate more effectively with managers when they enter sites as you get to know buzzwords and where they are coming from, a new different way of looking at things. Im half way through a management diploma at the moment and have learnt so much, i didnt think i would!
Maths is the big stumbling block, i started with the old ONC, the maths started with adding up, some pople thought it was a joke, by week 5.6 we were on triganometry, i was glad of the steady flow inot it! dont be put of by going back to basics and starting there. out of all the people who dropped out my courses around 80% of them was because of the maths. It is built inot other subjects too

good luck all
 
fuzzy said:
HNC/D are not vocational quals, they are not hands on. If your looking to upskill practically these are not the courses, level 3 is the highest you can go in plumbing. There is a level 4 NVQ but its a bit more general and looks at managing BS etc.
I would really recommend doing a NHC/D, they are tuff but intersting, it widens your scope, you think differently, can communicate more effectively with managers when they enter sites as you get to know buzzwords and where they are coming from, a new different way of looking at things. Im half way through a management diploma at the moment and have learnt so much, i didnt think i would!
Maths is the big stumbling block, i started with the old ONC, the maths started with adding up, some pople thought it was a joke, by week 5.6 we were on triganometry, i was glad of the steady flow inot it! dont be put of by going back to basics and starting there. out of all the people who dropped out my courses around 80% of them was because of the maths. It is built inot other subjects too

good luck all
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I'm currently doing the HNC Construction course, few months into it have finished building services(knew already) and CAD drawings now moving onto Science which is starting to get harder with the U Values etc and Building measurement and costing, I'm on this curse tue wed nights for 2 years but seems like a good course to widen my knowledge of the construction industry.

Did you go on to do any other courses after this course fuzzy? I have my SVQ3(NVQ) etc I was looking to go on a HND or go to uni and get a degree in something which will get me off the tools later on in life.
 
Having got an HNC and a degree I can only say you've got your work cut out. I generally tried to get away without buying text books if at all possible. A lot of lecturers recommend their pet books or even worse the ones they've written and you may find they're ok technically but as learning tools useless. As for the maths you definitely have get familiar with the calculus, first and second order differential equations. There are loads of books dealing with Calculus , if you want a cheap good one look for the Technical College Series National Certificate Mathematics. There's a series of them, a bit old but good & you'll probably find them on seebay or junk shops.Vector algebra,matrices and determinants come to mind as well. Add in imaginary numbers,napierian logs and a decent knowledge of the trig functions and you should be able to cope. Good luck

 
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