hello all this is my first post excuse the corny user name. Gas placement?

[elecpipe]

Hi this is probabably covering old ground and I do waffle abit but here goes:

I was made redundant from an electrical engineering job last year and even though I have electrical qualifications 17th edition inspect n test amongst others I am not allowed to sign off installations. I have not been a domestic electrician, but I intend to get assessed by one of the bodies probably Napit when I have wired my house up.

However what I really want to do is a renewable energy company and will go through the MCS process all being well for solar PV (electric bit needed for this). Now the plumbing bit. Hopefully later I can fit the solar thermal and heat pump aspects of renewable energy.

I have done a solar thermal course and want to fit and install these types of panels. One reason being, apart from the feel good factor that comes with the installation of green technolgies there is the new renewable heat incentive. This may yeild some work. However even though I have done a bit of plumbing it has never been my main trade therefore I am thinking of doing a gas course at BTC as they guarantee the placement.

The main reason I want to do this is that I beileve many boilers in the domestic setting probably don't have solar compatible systems. I want to fit the unvented cylinders and possibly fit a solar compatible boiler and rip the old ones out. So I thought gas would be the route to go. Also wood pellet burners would be a good thing to be able to fit and I believe you need gas safe registration for flues etc.

Do you guys think that I would be better off maybe getting away with the 3 week plumbing aspect. I believe btc don't offer city n guilds but it is supposed to be very good training according to the sales pitch and other forumn comments in the past. It is a lot cheaper a than the full gas training and I maybe wouldn't need a placement to get the elusive NVQ that is required for ACS.

Would I then be able to fit the unvented cylinders and maybe get an ACS guy in to do any boiler work? (Eventhough ideally I would like to do it all. WRAS is covered in the plumbing course and I intend to get the unvented course under my belt.) Or would it be an option to take the full gas course and with btc or other maybe fit the solar aspect and ask an ACS guy (who I contract in) to mentor me for the boiler work in return for the work and possibly greater than usual payment. This would be instead of having to do the site work to get the nvq?

Thanks in advance for any forth coming guidance.

 

[Jimbob]

for solid fuels such as wood pellet boilers, and wood gasification boilers you need to be HETAS I believe. As for most things they will have you do a course for absolutely everything, even tieing your shoe laces. As for MCS, havent they also moved the goal posts on this and is no longer a requirement for thermal solar, either way the MCS process is crazy.

 

[PlumbBobBob]

hi welcome along

 

[Dotty]

Welcome aboard elecpipe

 

[truemanufan]

Welcome along matey

 

[Puddle]

Hi elecpipe

Wlcome to the forums,hope you find helpful

 

[elecpipe]

Hi chaps sorry for the delayed response. Thanks for the welcome.
Bit of an update on the course thing: oh boy he's saved up all his words and let em all out at once again! lol.

The job centre suggested I write a business case to get something called action funding to pay for one of these expensive courses. Brookhouse, Eon, RF training. I found these after hours of trawling the net wrote the business case (downloaded a template as it was my first but it looked pretty good and full of B***S*** to pack it out.) It took hours and lots of emails for estimates etc. Then the job centre swapped my advisor as the other was off sick with something long term and no one knew what she was talking about. So I did about 40 hours work for nothing thanks for that JCP.

So the best they could do is suggest I got a career development loan.

So heres the plan going to concentrate on getting my electrical ticket and my mcs solar pv as I've fitted the panels etc. I just need to finish the minefield of quality procedures associted with it. The REAL code being the big thing. (Similar for solar thermal apparently) Its part done now. Then hopefully I will get the mcs and can maybe sell some pv panels in the mid summer.

If all this doesn't take off I may well go for the last resort loan thing and pay 7k for a Brookhouse course with guaranteed gas placement. At least then it will be Autumn / Winter and some boilers will need mending. As an ex electrical tester I like faults and hopefully I can handle it but we'll see.

What I now want to be able to do is fit the sterling engine boilers as you have to be mcs for them as well.

After doing the solar thermal course I realise by the time the client pays a service (supposed to be yearly) the new heat incentive doesn't make them much. Therefore find I find it hard to justify selling them. They are in most case only used for hot water in this country. But if I get clever enough and rich enough I would like to fit solar thermal supplementing a ground source heat pump using the earth as the solar thermal dump so the ground is warm in the winter and acting as a thermal battery.

So that's the plan if the 7k thing is a really bad idea please let me know your experiences of this sort of course. I hopefully will become rich from solar pv lol and not need to bother but won't order a lambo yet.

 

[brookhousescam]

Brookhouse Director is James McConnell - the history of his directorships -

Brookhouse Training Centre - set up May 20th 2011 - no accounts,
BTC Realisations 2011 Limited (formerly known as Brookhouse Training Centre) went bust 28th June 2011.
HIW Publishing Limited - Dissolved
James McConnell Limited - Dissolved
Plumbing and Electrical Training Limited - Two motions to strike off the company later suspended and accounts are late

People are having portfolios constantly rejected and items previously passed are then failed. Are they struggling financially? Is this the reason they don't want people to take exams as this costs them money?