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neebdike

been thinking about retraining as a plumber, there are loads of coures, jus need advice to find the best place to train??
 
Best place to learn mate is on site. Do you know anyone in the trade? That'd be your best bet, pay might be an issue though but im sure you're already aware of that.
 
been thinking about retraining as a plumber, there are loads of coures, jus need advice to find the best place to train??

Seriously!

Welcome to the forum :)

But you might want to think a bit harder, plenty of advice if you have a search for similar threads on the forum.
 
Welcome to the forums. What other experience do you have and why plumbing?
 
i have NONE, im a driving instructor by trade, and want another career path
 
i have NONE, im a driving instructor by trade, and want another career path

Hi Neebdike

Have a browse through the forum, and you will find that this topic comes up almost every day.

Whatever the naysayers say, it isn't impossible, but the odds are stacked against you. It takes several years to become a decent plumber and probably 10 years or more to become a really good one. The older guys who have been doing it 40 years will tell you that they still learn something new every day.

To do it at your age, and without experience is going to take a hell of a lot of committment, and a degree of luck. If you are just casting around for something else to do without any understanding of the trade, plumbing is best avoided - there are lots of wannabe career changers drifting through courses and not making it.

On the other hand, there are some late entrants who do very well. Just not very many.
 
thanks for the advice Ray!
that makes alot sense, i didnt want to sign up for a course withut all the facts before, im struggling with my instructing, and i thought plumbing isnt that hard a job to do, but i will think long and hard aout what you have said.. thanks
 
To be honest I always fancied a go at teaching driving except I'd only have any patience with the pretty young things.

Especially the ones wearing short skirts........
 
im a driving instructor by trade

How many days/weeks does that "trade" take to learn. I might give it a go myself.
Whats the money like these days? Must be ok as you are all running around in new cars.
 
To be honest I always fancied a go at teaching driving except I'd only have any patience with the pretty young things.

Especially the ones wearing short skirts........

watch out all you scotsmen out there!
 
thanks for the advice Ray!
that makes alot sense, i didnt want to sign up for a course withut all the facts before, im struggling with my instructing, and i thought plumbing isnt that hard a job to do, but i will think long and hard aout what you have said.. thanks

Cracks me up that comment, never fails.

You've no experience in plumbing so what's your basis for that comment?
 
yep plumbers sit around all day looking out of windows!! youve had the experience you need.
 
from start to finish about a year or so!! you can charge £20-£25 an hour depends on your area!! dont wrk for a big firm like BSM or AA the franchise fee will kill ya
 
what i meant to say is, ive always found repairing things at home easy, im very mechanically minded, i didnt mean to imply your trade was easy
 
what i meant to say is, ive always found repairing things at home easy, im very mechanically minded, i didnt mean to imply your trade was easy

No offense taken but, not wishing to burst your bubble, there are guy's out there with years of experience and training who are struggling. As Ray said, some do start at your age and make it, Far more don't.
 
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from start to finish about a year or so!! you can charge £20-£25 an hour depends on your area!! dont wrk for a big firm like BSM or AA the franchise fee will kill ya
You've been reading the hype from the Training Course Operators. Unless you have SOME experience in the building trade, you don't stand a chance of being able to become a plumber. It's VERY hard work with very long hours and for your first 2 years after you've qualified, you won't make a penny in profit.

Hope I've shattered your illusions of plumbing being an easy high paid job. Stick to what you do know and do best which is driving, the grass isn't greener on the other side! Why not find another job using your advanced driving skills instead? You'll be better prepared for it, won't have to spend thousands on a daft course offering false claims of Utopia and you'll make money from the outset instead of 2 to 3 years down the line.
 
thanks for the advice, people on this forum definitely know what their talking about
 
thanks for the advice, people on this forum definitely know what their talking about

I've done quite a few posts on here about this, I've done many jobs but was a grade 6 driving instructor blah blah blah before I became a plumber. I won't go into everything on here as it'll bore people going on about it again.

If you want to pm me feel free and I'll give you an open and honest opinion of things as I've found them.

As a start you'll charge £20 per hour as a driving inst at 6 hours a day, 5 days a week = £600 per week Yep, know about expenses but they are nothing to what this job has....... you won't be earning anywhere near that...... ANYWHERE!

I used to start lessons every day at 8 finish my last lesson at 7.30 and sat start at 8 finish at 2ish still not earning what I did as an inst! (min 8 hours teaching a day!)
 
I wanted to retrain as a banker but my JSA adviser was dyslexic.
 
hi!! can i ask why you havent gone back into instructing then?

At this point I new I shouldn't have posted a reply, here goes:

The reason I re-trained as a plumber is because I wanted to move to NZ but spending 4 weeks there it was obvious that it was too expensive, house price comparable to the UK, expensive just to survive, lawyers waiting in bars in the evening, everyone having 2 jobs.

I have a quite an interesting life and didn't want to give it up, neither of us did. Thats why I re-trained.

Course cost me £6500 which you cannot claim back through tax because you put yourself into employment there is a way round this but I didn't find out until too late. Oh, company I did my training with now gone bust!

I came out after 10 weeks with quite good quals but wait for it 'NEW NOTHING'. Imagine doing your training as a driving inst and sitting there for your first lesson with a person with no experience on there first lesson. Nerves etc, now enhance that by 200% as you turn the water off on your first job cut through the pipe and water is still coming. NO dual controls there.

I've found this job lonely, very lonely at times, things go wrong all the time, you constantly underestimate the time it takes, therefore underprice, not just novice plumbers but I've even seen experienced time served plumbers do this! Everyone knows what a lesson costs but your competing with any muppet with a spanner doing this.

There is no help, if it goes wrong it happens quickly and you loose control of the situation, not because of incompetence or lack of knowledge it just does, draining down a cylinder and the connection fall out as you touch it!!!! because of corrosion.

Its hard, on the knees, back, mentally, physically, I've watched my mate whose 62 put his head in his hands then look at me shrug and go and sit in the van for 30 minutes to calm down.

Then you finish the job, no leaks, 2 days later you get a call and its dripping HOW! but it does. You solve the problem a week later the problem comes back HOW! then you argue with the customer because they've already paid once!

Expenses are huge, as a driving instructor, a car, insurance, dia membership, tax, NI, fuel and maintenance.

Plumber public liability insurance, van, tools, tools, tools and tools and more tools etc.

IN general you as an instructor get paid at the end of the lesson, we get paid at the end of the job, you get knocked by a learner its £40 max, we get knocked it can be £000's.

Advantage we don't deal with the idiots at the DSA.

Why am I still doing it?

I can't afford to, in my 4th year and not earning as much as I did as a driving inst, now paying myself a wage though.

I'm in a unique posistion I have other money coming in, my girlfriend is the main bread winner and I am lucky.

If your the main bread winner, you'll be lucky very lucky to survive.

Last point as a fast tracker NO ONE will take you seriously, your only option is to go it alone! I run my own company and work with a couple of friends that I've made along the way.

If I needed to live on plumbing money alone I wouldn't be a plumber now, I'd have wasted £6500.

I quite enjoy it having said all that but this is not an easy industry by far. Don't be under the impression that because you 'tinker at home' this is an idea of what its like.

Hope this helps.

As a footnote, anything written here is not meant to offend anyone I have tried to be honest but it is difficult putting all my experiences down on a short post.

 
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A really good and honest post there SS on what being a plumber is all about.
 
Ive had enough of this plumbing lark.
i want to be a driving instructor,
all those young ladies with skirts up to there arse,
wanting me to teach them.absolute heaven, and you get paid.
 
A good post from Secret Squirell. I liked this bit:

Secret Squirell:

...draining down a cylinder and the connection fall out as you touch it!!!! because of corrosion.

It does not get any easier with time either, people just want it done cheaper and faster. As years went by I found myself turning into a kind of Norman Wisdom of the plumbing world!

As for driving instructing, I had one of the blokes who worked for me learning this for years, so he could get out of the plumbing game. He never mangaged to pass the advanced qualifications which are very difficult. So respect to those driving instructors, it is not easy to qualify in that either.

Read more: http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/p...-45-want-retrain-plumber-2.html#ixzz2LRTKgF3H
 
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fascinating read S, you have given a frank and honest account of the industry at its pesent time. I work for Red, and at the moment jus cant give me enough work to make a good living. I want to go independent but think the risk might be to geat in the financial climate
 
fascinating read S, you have given a frank and honest account of the industry at its pesent time. I work for Red, and at the moment jus cant give me enough work to make a good living. I want to go independent but think the risk might be to geat in the financial climate
going self employed is a risk in any financial climate not just bad ones.
 
fascinating read S, you have given a frank and honest account of the industry at its pesent time. I work for Red, and at the moment jus cant give me enough work to make a good living. I want to go independent but think the risk might be to geat in the financial climate

if your worried about going independant in a trade to are already in, how on earth do you think youll cope in a brand new trade with no customers or experience?
 
fascinating read S, you have given a frank and honest account of the industry at its pesent time. I work for Red, and at the moment jus cant give me enough work to make a good living. I want to go independent but think the risk might be to geat in the financial climate

I was a driving inst in the last economic disaster, any industry that people look at and think 'its easy' is at risk of having the market flooded by wannabes, recently redundant people who have cash to burn think 'I'll be a driving instructor how hard can it be sitting there telling people turn left, turn right'

This is complete bull, we both know it, not going into what it takes to become an instructor here, not the correct forum. Its a long hard slog and when I did it, I think the overall pass rate from begining the training to becoming an ADI was 35% then most give it up and go back to what they knew before being made redundant. Adverts by RED and BSM are scandalous.

This industry is no different, people advertising big earnings blah blah blah it is just blatant lies. I didn't believe the hype, I've done enough in my life to see bull but I thought it'd be easier than it is to earn at this job.

I underestimated, ok, completely underestimated how difficult this job is,

Yesterday I priced a radiator for a woman , long story short, I quoted £200, the rad and parts were £100, didn't get the job, asked the woman how much she thought the job would cost and she said '£100' you will face this on a daily basis.

Trouble is the quote cost me about an hour of my day! as a driving instructor you don't deal with this, the cost of the lesson is set. Simple, no arguing! if the learner doesn't turn up you can still charge for the lesson.

If I got the job I will have to spend £100 out of my pocket to get the stuff, if I get knocked I am not only out on labour but out on the parts, my supplier will still want his money! If a learner doesn't have the money your out £20 or you just drive off, you don't let them run up a tab....

If you decide to jump ship, good luck to you, think carefully, you will have to give up your badge unless you still want to do the check test but there is a way round this if you need to know send me a PM.
 
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