Good Evening! New to the forum AND the trade!

[AndyRG]

Good Evening All

I'm Andy, I'm from a small town near Bath, Somerset and I would like to become a plumber!

I have spent the past 12 years in the motor trade working in various motor factors working my way up from parts, to operations, to service advisor and now currently I am running an independent garage, but its all going to change, hopefully for the best!

I have decided to take the leap and become a plumber, this is mainly due to being a hands on type person stuck behind a desk all my working life and I would rather be putting my mechanical skills to good use and learn something new and take on a more hands on career.

I have therefore booked myself onto my 6 week City and Guilds 6035 diploma followed by working along side a reputable plumbing company in Kent to gain my NVQ level 2. I am due to start in March and am aiming to be NVQ within 6 months providing all goes well.

I am not fully sure of what the long term plan is yet but for now I am going to aim to become a plumbers mate for at least a couple of years, maybe put myself through a tiling course and plastering so I can cover most aspects of bathroom fitting and of course gain a lot of knowledge working along side someone willing to give me good experience of the trade

I am so excited to get started and look forward to learning the trade and speaking to fellow trainees on the forum and learn from the experts on here also

Would love to hear from other people that have not long been in the trade and hear how it has been for you starting out on the job

Cheers! Andy

 

[Masood]

It all sounds so easy when you put it like that...

Welcome to the forum and good luck!

 

[AndyRG]

Yeah I guess it sounds easy when it's all planned out but I know its going to be very difficult to find work once I am qualified as experience is the key and that's exactly what I won't have! I am dropping everything I have to do this though, I already earn good money doing what I do now and I know for a few years plumbing I won't be earning the same and also loss of earnings whilst training, I really have to make this work for me

 

[turnpin]

Welcome to the forum's Andy...this place is a fountain of knowledge I admire your ambition and I wish you well ..try and leave your old job on good term's just in case things don't work out as you'd hoped......it is tough to break into this profession not impossible but hard none the less..best of luck regards Turnpin:welcome:

 

[Old Account]

Hello and welcome Andy, as far as you know mechanical jobs are not sugar leaking jobs, sometimes it works well but you have got days everything goes wrong and you will need to prepared till the teeth.

As mentioned before it is not impossible but a long way to become a decent and good engineer. It looks and sounds easy to change taps and stuff like that but let me tell you sometimes there are pretty tough

But as long as you really want it and you trying hard to become a good engineer nothing will stop you just stick to this forum , read and get help whenever you feel you need some advise ... The engineer over here are very wise and have a lot of experience and are able to guide you through a lot of things.

Don't be shy to ask ppl are very helpful.

Regards , Ron

 

[lame plumber]

bit of lateral thinking here, your an experienced person in the motor trade, why not hire a couple of mechanics and go it alone in the motor trade, you have a better chance of being successful in something you know about.

 

[newcastle phill]

Im with lame.
This is hard to break into.
And expensive.

Open an MOT station

 

[Radioman]

bit of lateral thinking here, your an experienced person in the motor trade, why not hire a couple of mechanics and go it alone in the motor trade, you have a better chance of being successful in something you know about.

I understand you may be frustrated with the motor trade but believe me there is more grief and competition in the plumbing world than you would believe. My advice would be to stick with what you know and are already qualified for. If your job was being made redundant or employment projects in your trade where Rubbish then that's a different proposition.
If you are determined to try plumbing I would advise you to try and get a job as a plumbers mate, leave your existing employer on good terms, try out the new trade at the bottom of the ladder being paid to learn. Then if you hate it go back to what you know.
You don't mention your age but if you are young enough there is still government funding for training at the moment. This is being removed soon.
Running a business is more or less the same regardless of the type of business it is. By sticking with what you know you are removing a huge risk element.

 

[AndyRG]

Appreciate what your saying guys, but I assure you, the motor trade is not an option especially when it comes to setting up a garage. Independent garages are dying, competition is fierce with dealerships even starting to come in cheaper than smaller independent garages and specialists. For instance, in my area garages are offering MOTs for around £29-35. To run an MOT station you must firstly get premises, take out finance on an MOT bay which costs between £25k-40k, hire an MOT tester at between £24-28k per year. If I was to charge out an MOT at £35 for instance, £2-3 goes to VOSA, say £10-12 ph for my mechanics labour leaves me with a profit of around £20 for 1 hours work. That's not even taking into consideration how much my finance on the MOT bay costs, my garage overheads and rent. Realistically I would be making maybe £10 per hour profit. The same apples to servicing. Dealerships are constantly offering servicing and MOT at offer price, for instance interim service and MOT for just £99 etc etc, if my garage were to offer this we would make no profit as diagnostic equipment to reset service lights, parts for the service, oil costs, mechanics labour rate and then overheads, it really isn't even worth it. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of garages out there making good money and running smoothly but unless you are a specialist you will struggle.

I have worked at specialists in the past making 50k a month with only 2 technicians, but they have been trading in VW/Audi for 26years, they don't owe anything on premises, equipment so all they have to pay is overheads and wages, however the independent I work for now makes 20k a month, but we owe on equipment, we have two techs on £1700 a month take home, a rented building, my wages at £1700 and monthly parts bills of around £5k. It's not so great as what I was used to because we are not a specialist and would take hell of a lot more investment in equipment for a specific manufacturer of we were to become one.

So guys, this is my reason for not wanting to open or run a garage, the amount of investment required scares me, don't get me wrong it scares me to think I am sticking 4K into a course, losing 2-3 months of wages to do something new that may not work for me but that is an investment that I will have for life regardless of if it works out or not, and I can still find a motor trade job after if I need to to get some money coming back in, but opening or running a garage is a massive investment and a huge loss if it doesn't work out, I will be left in debt for garage equipment, having to pay to drop out of a lease on building etc etc you get the picture.

I totally know what your saying about plumbing being difficult to get in to and it being a struggle but I am willing to risk £7-8k of savings to do this rather than getting 20-30k of debt of a garage that may not even break even for 2-3 years.

I hope you can all see where I am coming from, really appriciate your opinions though guys, keep them coming, I hope I am making the right choice

 

[newcastle phill]

Thanks for the insight into the garage business.
But please be assured this game isnt any different.

 

[newcastle phill]

If you want to buy a fully equipped van with every concievable tool you will require PM me. Lol

 

[AndyRG]

Hi Phil

Totally, I couldn't agree more with you, I have a close friend who is a self employed plumber and I have seen months where he has been so rushed off his feet he has had to sub contract work out, yet other months he has struggled to get through.

From my point of view at least I will gain at minimum my NVQ qualification for my £7-8k rather than plunging a huge debt into the motor trade. I mean, providing I can find work as a plumbers mate after the course, I will be happy because at least I will be putting my qualification to good use and gaining experience, yeah ok maybe I won't earn good money for a long time but the main thing is I will be happy and that's what it comes down to at the end of the day.

 

[newcastle phill]

If your hell bent - avoid these train-fast regimes...

Find a good local college and you will save 4k.
It will take longer - but the training and certification is assured