why do Plumbers put Up with It

[reluctantplumber]

Why do we put up with this? How about lobbying for a simple law requiring every plumber to have insurance or minimum qualifications?The whole of Plumbing as an industry I think will soon disappear, there are so many untrained people, east europeans and every handyman avaliable proclaiming they are Plumbers.

I personally did three years training but when I look in my Local paper and see fifty people advertising plumbing and even Handymen advertising Bathroom and Kitchen design and Fitting then isn't the future of plumbing as a Trade pretty obvious?

[mark6266]

no not at all worried at all ,my local paper is full of plumbing adds and i dont advertise and my diary is full to 2007 and a lot of the work is correcting others work. ive found word and mouth is the best add . i do agree that it is a shame that the customer has to suffer due to the lack of control on the trade as a whole. also customers tend to look for corgi engineers to do plumbing work that in its self is a problem if the chap is a gas engineer and given that gas work is a lot more profitable why would he be interested in fitting your bathroom ??? i dont think you need to be a brain surgen to follow that logic.also the level of training at the colleges is in my opinion poor . Also ther are many pitfalls to worry about ,I know of a plumbing company that employs sub contractors to do insurance work and thay pay the subcontractors £15 a job the sub contractor will struggle to do more the 6 jobs a day you do the maths and ask your self how good can thease subcontractors be if thay earn only £450 a week. most of them are young lads just starting out. can you guess what happens next yes thats right the large company doesnt pay them .In the past i have taken on trainees who have been ripped off by the large companys and let down by colleges and given them self respect back by training them and supplyed them with a reference so the can move forward ,one of my lads is doing very well at british gas ,but when he came to me he was about to pack it in . Something must be done to stop the practice . So if you are a young plumber just starting out the best advice I can give you is to seek employment with a company that gives you a contract of employment a stay away from subcontracting and get a few years experence befor seting out on your own because there are sharks the thease waters.regard mark

[plumbkwik]

Even those who go to college are getting no on the job training around here. We get tons of applications each week from people who have done two years at college and still not been able to get an apprenticeship. We can't afford to train them all, so I imagine most of them will set up on their own without any practical experience at all.

As for people not being insured - this happens in many industries and it is frightening. We are insured but I don't think it would be fair to force everyone to be insured. I know some people who are insured and don't claim on it when there are problems, as the premiums and excess would go sky high the following year.
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[stuartl]

I am qualified but hey look at how many qualified plumbers out there go into peoples properties and make a right hash of it,i think they should have to go through training again.I do agree that too many people doing plumbing are not qualified and something should be done to prevent this.

[HSP]

the only solution is a 5yr apprenticeship
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