K
kirkgas
@ Kirkgas
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply, sorry its taken me so long to get back on here but I've had a few things going on that needed dealing with.
I've read both of your replies and I am still very interested in doing a Gas Engineers course. Like you, I am slightly concerned about the short length of the course offered by Trade Qualified (8 weeks but not consecutive) although I have been assured by them that no previous experience or knowledge is needed and completion of the course will qualify me competently.
This is a copy of thier course outline on the website:
Domestic Gas Engineer – DGE1 Course Qualifications
Gas Foundation Certificate – Bpec Certified
Portfolio of Evidence (Not in itself a qualification but you cannot get qualified without it)
Accredited Certification Scheme (ACS) for Gas Installers/Fitters and Engineers
CCN1 - Core Gas Safety (Now includes Combustion Performance Analysis- CPA1)
MET1 - Domestic Gas Meters
CKR1 - Gas Cookers and Hobs
HTR1 - Gas Space Heaters (Gas Fires)
CENWAT - Domestic Gas Central Heating Boilers & Gas Water Heaters (An updated combined qualification that replaces CEN1 & WAT1)
DGE1 Course Structure
Stage One – 15 Days in Centre to gain the Gas Foundation Certificate
Stage Two – 20 Days of which 5 days are In-Centre and the rest off-site for Portfolio work.
Stage Three – 4 Days in Centre for ACS examinations
As you can see, it says that it is Bpec certified so surely it must be up to a decent standard?
I have looked at a couple of different courses but it seems that I can't get any good reviews on them as people only seem to think 5 years apprenticeships are good enough. Again, I'm only looking to do very small jobs to start with as a way of supplementing my current income and will happilly work for free with a larger local firm to gain that all important experience.
I will have another look at the Bpec Gas foundation course but one of my problems is that I need to be able to study part time due to my current job.
@ Paulsanderson
Thanks also for the advice, much appreciatted.
its all in the sales spin, as stated the bpec "GAS FOUNDATION CERTIFICATE" is a certified course, this is avery basic intro into gas to ascertain whether you are potentially able to learn the gas via a set of exams based on basic core knowledge, once you have this cert you are eligible to join a training course to learn all the modules and work towards the ACS exams and full qualification, the 28 weks i mentioned, include the basic gas foundation cert, the theory training and the portfolio building all of which takes 28 weeks, i'm not convinced it can be done any quicker,
the bpec manual is quite good although there are about 20 typos in it, send me a PM with an email address and i will send you the correction sheet i have made up for it (while i wait on bpec sorting it officially)