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Ian Marsh

Hi all I am 44 and looking to change career to plumbing. I have been to the college and I am going to do an evening course level 2 nvq as I work during the day my job that I do is not in the plumbing Industry. My problem is that to complete the level 2 nvq I have to do work in Plumbing to get it signed off. Any ideas on how to achieve this because at the age of 44 no one is going help me to complete the nvq. So am I up the creek with out a paddle.
Any help wold be great.
Thank you
Ian
 
Welcome to the forum ian. How much did the course cost you? I'm assuming you know somebody in the plumbing industry??
 
Hi the college is charging get me £1070 per year it is going to to take 2 years as it is part time evening course.
 
How do you expect to have a career as plumber if you won't commit to it full time? I was qualified after an apprenticeship and after 2-3 years working at plumbing 4 days a week and one day at college I still was very green. After 13-14 years I'm still learning new tricks. Not many but some....
May I suggest you do something quicker to learn and earnings can be the same or even more sometimes.
Plumbing also has so many regulations and requirements and is expensive to maintain them all. I have mates who are dry liners and plasterers and can earn a fortune.
 
Not completely without a paddle, but close enough to worry about the life jacket :)

Ideally you would need to be doing this full time, or at least part time, in order to gain experience that you you really do need.

If you can, why not start by doing a few 'jobs' for friends and family, using what you learn at the college, and gradually expand your repertoire of skills accordingly.

If you can also strike up a conversation with a local, or not too local, plumber and offer to work for him at the weekend if he agrees to sign off your work, you will have a much better chance at success.

I'm all for education, and reinventing yourself - I used to be a plumber, then a school teacher, now a plumber again but I got my C&G back when they didn't have quite so many regulations and there weren't quite so many other plumbers around either.

You don't indicate where you are located either, and this would help as there are usually - but not always - people on this site what are willing to help :)

Good luck, and keep us posted re your progress
 
Hi
Thank you for a reply. But I am going to ignore your comment about not being comited. As I find this insulting. As you said you started an apprenticeship. I am also assuming you were not 44 years old when you done this apprenticeship. Unfortunately I am not 16/17/18 so I don't have the luxury of living at home with parents. I have a mortgage to pay so an evening course is what I have to do so I can still pay my bills an train for a new career.
Thank you
Ian
 
Hi
Thank you Robert for some very useful advice it is always welcome. You have given me something to think about i am in swindon wiltshire so if there are any plumbers from swindon on here that can help me this would be very much appreciated.
Regards
Ian
 
Hi
Thank you for a reply. But I am going to ignore your comment about not being comited. As I find this insulting. As you said you started an apprenticeship. I am also assuming you were not 44 years old when you done this apprenticeship. Unfortunately I am not 16/17/18 so I don't have the luxury of living at home with parents. I have a mortgage to pay so an evening course is what I have to do so I can still pay my bills an train for a new career.
Thank you
Ian

What give you the right to change to plumbing at 44 then ?

And you expect to keep on paying the bills & living the life you have become accustom too.

You find the truth about how hard it is going to be to learn this trade insulting, well thats a shame cos the truth is in this life there are just some things we can't do or have, even if a local college offers an evening course in it.

I actually find it very insulating that you think that my trade is that easy to learn.

Best of luck.
 
Ian, lets say you do spend your 2k and after 2yrs you have your L2 nvq at 46 then what? Companies wont employ you due to your lack of experience working in the real world and going self employed is expensive with van, tools, advertising and all the costs of all the insurance`s with a zero customer base.

Newish SE guys here will tell you about the times when you pray the phone will ring and going stir crazy with worry about how your going to pay the next bill that drop through the letterbox.

Seriously, think again!
 
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I did an evening NVQ2 plumbing course as part of my resettlement from the Army.

There were a lot of 30-50 year olds who were going to do it as a change of career, some from good paying office jobs, others mechanics, painters and one was a regional manager of a fairly large company. Some just did it to learn how to do it in their own home.

In my second year I left the Army, started an apprenticeship 4 days and went to college 1 day a week, and took a £19k pay drop in the first year, all whilst paying the rent (I had some savings).

I am the only one who is in the trade, all the lads from the evening course couldn't commit to an apprenticeship with the drop in pay, and nobody will employ you on a qualified salary with a level 2 and no experience.
 
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Hi
Thanks Aquazone for your input to my question. This is and will be my problem after 2 years of collage and doing some (diy plumbing on the side) I will still need to find someone to work with for the proper hands on experience and to get my work signed off. I am not worried about the work I will need to put in and I am not saying that plumbing is easy all I am saying is that at my age an apprenticeship is very difficult to do when you have a family to support. So if there is someone from swindon who is willing to give me some weekend work in Plumbing it would be very much appreciated.
Thank you
Ian
 
Hi Ian

Please don' take this as an insult, it's just that I have noticed no one refer to it yet and just want to make sure you are aware before you jump into plumbing......
Plumbing and gas have a bad habit up messing up the knees, hips and back, through the nature of the work. I've known many a young man (20=27) Pack it in already because of these issues. I would hate for you at 44 to do 2years study, invest money and discover that this could be an issue for you, before you say you are physically fit, a lot of others are too but
A few years in with all the lifting and such and they are buggered up and find themselves looking for a less physically demanding job so that they can avoid be debilitated in retirement.
Lots still graft into a ripe age and fairplay to them, but lots with their vast experience and knowledge try to move away from daily hard graft as their knowledge is vast, gained over many years and allows this.....

Id be cautious that all but best wishes in whatever you decide to do ;)
 
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Hi
Thank you for a reply. But I am going to ignore your comment about not being comited. As I find this insulting. As you said you started an apprenticeship. I am also assuming you were not 44 years old when you done this apprenticeship. Unfortunately I am not 16/17/18 so I don't have the luxury of living at home with parents. I have a mortgage to pay so an evening course is what I have to do so I can still pay my bills an train for a new career.
Thank you
Ian

That's fine and it wasn't personal just a fact. I did do an apprenticeship and your right I was at home with no other worries. What they show you in college will not teach you much. I promise you that you will come across systems that wasn't in the textbooks and problems that were not in the text books. Then what are you going to do with no one there to help you out? Tell the customer you have no idea? You'll be out on your ear with a bad reputation before you've started.
 
Hi
And thank you to all who have replied to my questions. I am new to plumbing and that is why I am asking questions. I know that I have left it late in life to change career. My wife has had cancer twice and has beaten it twice. So that is why I want to change my career learn the plumbing trade so that I can provide a decent life for her. Please don't take this as a sob story or a poor me story. I just think I should explain why I am changing career so late in life. And asking for help and advice.
Once again thank you.
Ian
 
That's my point. People presume plumbers earn all this money. It takes years to build the speed and quality to have the right to charge the rates that some plumbers do. You could learn plastering or even tiling inside a couple of years and be fast enough to clear £150-£180 a day. Is this not enough?
 
That's fine and it wasn't personal just a fact. I did do an apprenticeship and your right I was at home with no other worries. What they show you in college will not teach you much. I promise you that you will come across systems that wasn't in the textbooks and problems that were not in the text books. Then what are you going to do with no one there to help you out? Tell the customer you have no idea? You'll be out on your ear with a bad reputation before you've started.

JCS - With regard to not having anyone to help out if things aren't what they seem - I did a Government training course at a Skill Centre in Reading C1982, then straight into plumbing (I call this my apprenticeship but I know that it's not the same).
Yes - it can be difficult and it was, in part, however in this day and age one can peruse the Internet and locate all sorts of information through forums such as this, and once working in the trade, relationships are built with others who might, just might be your 'Phone a freind' :)

With regard to changing careers - I made it up the ladder to site foreman, without help from a mentor, and then became discouraged after being made redundant so I changed my career and, against all the odds, I became a school teacher. I have a Hons degree in Fine Art and a Post Graduate degree in teaching Art & Design. I have rarely had help from others unless I have searched this out for myself yet I have made it this far, and I'm 58 in August.

I run my own business now and my work has increased 10 fold since starting in 2013 so I'm happy with what I do, and this is the main thing about career changes really - enjoy what you're doing, oh - and admit it if you don't know the answer. I always say "I'm not certain about this but I'll be back tomorrow with an answer". This will then be picked up by the customer and, as in my case, they will spread the news that there's a very happy, honest plumber/heating engineer who doesn't mind the small jobs or the big jobs. Before you know what's happened your reputation has grown and you're making a profit. Yes it's difficult but it can, and has been done.
If Ian wants to do this to have a better standard of living, or a better work/life balance then who are we to say he shouldn't. We are lucky enough to have this trade and as such we should (This isn't meant to denigrate your opinions or comments btw) encourage rather than dissuade.
As long as he's prepared for the hard graft at the start, and to learn from his mistakes, as there will be many, then he'll make it work for him.

Enough rambling from me - I've now got to drive the boss into work :)
 
Hi Robert
Thank you so much or your comments. And for the encouragement. All I can do is work as hard as I can to achieve my goals.
Many thanks
Ian
 
That's my point. People presume plumbers earn all this money. It takes years to build the speed and quality to have the right to charge the rates that some plumbers do. You could learn plastering or even tiling inside a couple of years and be fast enough to clear £150-£180 a day. Is this not enough?

This is a good option. Without a full time apprenticeship you will really struggle. I had the good fortune to have a wife with a decent income (and patience) that allowed me to work for £7 an hour when I changed careers at age 29. Many people have asked me why I don't go self employed but there are two main reasons. I was extremely fortunate to get a job running the plumbing workshop at our FE college, with a split between the workshop duties, teaching assistant alongside 2 veteran plumbing lecturers and also plumbing for the estates management team which keeps me on the tools with various projects and maintenance.

The second reason, in fact the main reason, is that after 5 years full time under an extremely competent plumber and 2 and a half years working after that, I still don't have the confidence or experience to go it alone. This is despite being out in a work supplied van for most of those 5 years with the backup of the company owner at all times and a further two and a half years working on projects and maintenance across three college campuses. I simply don't have the experience to risk making a living on my own.

I wish you the best of luck but this is a much harder road than I was expecting even with such fantastic support.

I'd just like to finish by saying that you may well take to this and really make it fly and I really hope you can manage it but I wanted to give my opinion, based solely upon my own experience. You of course may be a better man than I!
 
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