mr combi training course

[fullofgas]

i did this course in december, it was the biggest waste of money i have spent, £150 for the course,£30 fuel to get to bedford, £50 for a night at hotel. something annoyed me on the day, mr combi (george) booked in a salesman from intergas to show his product which took 30-40 minutes, i was standing there the whole time thinking i have paid £150 to be demostrated a boiler whlle i could of been learning about faults,multimeter etcc..

by the time the course started to get going it was lunch time. on the practical you take a boiler each on the wall but if your not sure about something you have to wait til george has been round each person so you can stand there for ages until you learn anything, you then do this again on another test and so on. for the money spent and time i learnt virtually nothing, the class is too big and is not good for people who are new to testing electrics. If you know basic electrics and use a multimeter you will not learn anything. im going to go on the manufactures courses instead.

 

[ndsmith]

I dont think I will book on this course, considered it. Sounds like a few manufacturer courses are the best option

 

[stratplus]

Would have been nice to have been given a copy of the DVD at the end of the course tbh. £60 is a bit steep when you've paid for the course.

 

[PlumbersMate]

Have been umming and arring over this for ages. Have to wait til I've sat my acs anyway but not sure wether to do this course

 

[stoker122]

I went on it a few years back with two recently qualified guys.
I quite enjoyed it as I knew what he was talking about. The two lads didn't pick much up because the day is quite rushed with not a lot of time actually working on appliances.
From what I have heard you may be better going on the Baxi course at Dartford, everyone I've spoken to who's been on it highly recommends it.

 

[Riley]

Totally agree just went on baxi course in Warwick. Outstanding!! Get lunch included in cost and they give you useful tools to take away.

 

[Riley]

Ps baxi only have groups of 6.

 

[mutley racers]

i did baxi course 2 weeks ago. Great course a. i like the magnet they give you after. Also, nice having a go on boilers in that environment to fault find. only problem i found was they said 90% of the time it will not be a pcb. But 3 out of the 6 i was on were pcb faults. Which i did not want to say as of what was said before. confused me!! But i really enjoyed it. would suggests all newbe's to fault finding to go. they were actually teaching british gas while we were there too. Not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing. he he

 

[Riley]

Yeah they had BG guys there when I was apparently they have a contract to train their old and new engineers. Made me chuckle when I heard how bad at fault finding some of em were.

 

[mutley racers]

me too. But when i think about, we are there for the same reasons, to learn. which we did. i feel a lot more confident now if i ever get called to a break down. good price as well i think. well worth the money

 

[Riley]

Totally agree mutley, the guy running said he had no prob with the guys trying to learn. It was the guys that thought they already knew it all but didn't

:wink_smile:
​

 

[Dannypipe]

I did that Baxi course a few years back and it was brilliant.

I plan to do it again at some point just to brush up on forgotten points, I'm definelty not one of those types that think they know it all!

 

[Riley]

Amen to that Danny, there were guys on my course that go every year just to brush up. Ill be thinking about doing the same.

 

[nigel2060]

Went to one of the road shows (bridgend) I must say I was very diapionted ! all about money for Dvds and Multimeters , Lunch was ok ! we went to the harvester

 

[Dickie]

I've done loads of boiler manufacturers courses & the Baxi one is one of the best. Most have a morning of hard sell, then a few hours going through the appliances. I've got a Bootleg copy of the Mr Combi course somewhere, but as many others have said it's basic stuff.

On the electrics for example; go on-line & on Youtube there's 100s of details & vidoes on Ohms, Volts & Amps, get that sorted & you're well on your way. Anyone in the Glasga area or central belt of Scotland, I'd be happy to meet them & give them a copy of all the stuff I have on appliance repairs & electronics, just ensure you have all your ACS, an open mind & a bottle of Buckie for the Teacher.............Sweet!!!

 

[Dickie]

Oh I forgot, Mr Combi's iPhone Apps are OK also, but have one or two bugs.....:wink:

 

[jolly roger]

i got his dvd, its ok, the good thing being, as someone said you can watch it time and again, till the penny drops, dont think i would bother paying for the day though :cheesy:

 

[Unregistered]

I booked this course a couple of months ago, attended on 22/04/2015. I was so excited when I booked the course, I've been an installer for 8 years now and without sounding big headed am more than competent in that area, but for a long time I've felt that I need to be offering a more complete service, that's where fault finding comes in. so after a 3 hour journey and £150.00 or so, I was bitterly disappointed with what I received. Firstly id like to say that Steve (the trainer) quite clearly has some experience and a lot of knowledge when it comes to boiler repair and fault finding and I'm sure that he could probably repair pretty much anything that heats water, I really am not disputing this in any way and think that it's honourable to want to share this knowledge (even if the whole thing is one big cash generator for the man, you cant argue with good business). that's the Pro. here are the cons. He's rude! the man is not interested in anything the trainees wanted to say, he had a script (or so it seemed) which he has memorised very well, with the help of his slide show, and he did not want to stray away from that. I've taken many courses on gas boilers, unvented, domestic boiler appreciation and understanding etc... all of which had some things in common, they were quite relaxed, delivered by people who knew how to communicate, and were filled with the engineers, both trainers and trainees, discussing things that they/ we have come across on the job, as far as im concerned this does nothing but aid in the learning, personally im going to remember something a lot easier if I can relate it to something that has happened in my own career. I tried to ask him a question about something I had come across on the job, to which I received, "are you finished?"...Really? the man doesn't have time to answer a question, but spoke at length about how rich he is and how big his house is countless times, no "nobody cares how much money you have!" secondly I was told that that the course would be a day of working on boilers to find faults etc... Complete Lies! there are boilers to "work on", which ewe were given around half an hour to use throughout the whole day, and then told during our breaks that we were welcome to have a go on them. the problem is that none of the boilers are even piped in or working in any fashion. They are literally old boilers that have been hung on the wall and wired in. I was expecting "working boilers" with faults that we had to find. NO SUCH LUCK. he did however have boxes and boxes of sensors, switches etc... for us to test, the problem is, when I'm called to a job because they've got a fault boiler, I can't see that I'm going to be lucky enough to have the faulty part handed to me by the customer! im going to have to figure out which part I need to test , locate it and figure out how to test it and if need be how to replace it. What I did learn from this course is how to go through a box of various switches and sensors, and tell you which ones work and which ones don't, I'm yet to find a job which involves this skill! thirdly, he then went over to the only working boiler in the room, a Vaillant. I was pretty pleased that it was a Vaillant as I am a huge fan of the boilers and have been on a few courses at their centres of excellence so am pretty clued up when it comes to how they work. Steve, as it turns out, is not! he went on to explain to the group, some of whom were quite clearly new to this and needed correct guidance to begin their career in gas heating, that there MUST be at least 20mbar of gas pressure at the point just before the pipe enters the boiler(Vaillant EcoTec pro 24) and that you are allowed to lose 1mbar through the gas valve, so the pressure at the boiler test point must be atleast 19mbar...somebody needs to inform Vaillant of this fact as they seem to think, and have told me on many occasions, that a Vaillant EcoTec Pro 24 will work with 16mbar before the boiler, and that you will lose 3mbar through the gas valve, making the pressure at the test point 13mbar, this is assuming that all of the appropriate tests are carried out and pass. I think I'm going to go with Vaillant on that one. He then went on to tell us that there Must be a 22mm gas pipe all the way to any condensing boiler... Really. A Vaillant combi boiler has a 15mm inlet so again I think one of us really needs to give them a call to explain how dreadfully wrong they have been all this time. I've been installing for a while now and I know, and the MI's will tell you the same, that not all boilers require a 22mm gas pipe, some will but some will be fine with some 15mm pipe running to it, and there are tests which will confirm whether or not a gas pipe needs to be upgraded or not, as an installer this is something that I carry out on every single job, and there have been many times where 15mm has been more than enough for that specific boiler. I apologise for the essay and the rant, but I feel that this "course" is such a rip off and a complete waste of time, I came away from there which very little knowledge that I didn't have when I walked into the room that morning and genuinely wish I'd saved my money. Don't waste your time and hard earned money on this, I promise you, you could find better information on youtube! I will now be testing the components on the boilers that I am removing as well as those of my family and of boilers that I am installing to try to gain some experience and confidence in doing so, I should have been given this opportunity at the rip off centre that is Mr Combi.

 

[oz-plumber]

You should register.

 

[Rckape]

Thanks for the in depth review, I'd definitely recommend registering, this forum is packed with useful info, especially on the gas safe registered side.

 

[lame plumber]

but keep your threads short n sweet if possible

 

[manic26]

Been to vokera fault finding which was good. Apparently Mr Combi tried to come on one of their courses in London which they denied him.

Next month going to Baxi one which I'm looking forward to.

 

[Riley]

Baxi One is wicked you should learn a lot

 

[IND_Nick]

I went to the Baxi course in Warrington a few years ago and it was well worth the investment of time and money. Plenty of hands on and the trainer was easy to communicate with and relaxed.

 

[Mikead80]

Old thread but worth adding.

I thought i'd give the Mr Combi DVD Bundle a go. Total rip off. One of the DVDs doesn't play and he is trying to blame my 2 DVD players and Laptop!! He then sends me some photo telling me he would know if I've recorded his DVD along with a few other comments.
The worst customer service ever. I won't be going on any of his courses. If you want a DVD of Bungle out of Rainbow, with a dodgy wig and bad shirts and a few mumbles about how dangerous fused spurs are, please let me know.