Official Bodies / Organisations

[Sanke]

Hi all
Just wondering if any of you are member's of an official body e.g. CIPHE & if it has produced any work for you

 

[dontknowitall]

OFTEC for two years and their advertising has produced one job for me. BUT ... lots of customers are more confident that I know what I'm talking about (wish I was!) and that I've gained a good knowledge of oil boilers. In addition it means I can charge more and when I explain about re-training, calibration of my FGA, etc they don't feel stung.

 

[WHPES]

OFTEC. I always talk up and promote the fact that I am registered. The general customer perception I have come across is that unregistered oil technicians are cowboys and several ask to see my registration card before starting work.

 

[Dannypipe]

Not all guys oil technicians are cowboys, some just don't want to pay for additional registrations fees. Gas Safe is compulsory for working with Gas, when the same applies with oil then I'll join up.

I would like to join up now, but lets face it, we spend fortunes on courses. I just had to cancel a course due to my work load, and lost my deposit of £100.

I employ a OFTEC guy for signing off and commisioning. I do the commisioning with him and it's not hard. Calibrate the air intake, the oil pump, do a smoke test and a combustion analysis. I can see that jo blogs plumber would need training to do this, but I have the training, but won't join another registration body when I don't have to.

 

[fuzzy]

never been rgistered apart from corgi and gas safe, expensive with little benefit

 

[Sanke]

Hi Danny
I see from your website that you have associations with C & G BPEC CIPHE & Gas Safe. Gas Safe is compulsory but do you get any benefit from promoting the others ????

 

[Dannypipe]

The C & G is the organisation that I trained with, and I'm a workplace recorder for them (meaning I train people for them).
BPEC is the same, it's the organisation I qualified with to work with natural Gas, and work with unvented DHW cylinders.

The only benefit of promoting them is to prove to people that I have spent the time and money to get professionally qualified, and I'm not a fly by night!

Gas Safe I'm registered with, and no again the only real benefit is allowing people to see that I'm qualified to work on their gas appliance.

CIPHE - total waste of money.

So in a nut shell, I'm sure people see from the above that I'm a properly trained plumber who is qualified and competant. I genuinely don't think its a big deal to most people though. I probably get asked to show my Gas Safe ID card once a year....won't be renewing CIPHE, but can keep the C&G, Gas Safe and BPEC as I'm qualified via them and continue to do more courses with them reguarly.

I'm also a member of the FSB but I haven't thrust that upon my poor customers....yet!

 

[Toddyplumb]

Why do you think CIPHE is a total waste of money ?

 

[Dannypipe]

Just my opinion Toddy, but unless you're going to work abroad, i.e Hong Kong, I don't see the point.

You don't have to be qualified in this country to call yourself a plumber or engineer...and yes this proves that you are a qualified plumber, but as I have said above, people in this country don't ask to see your credentials.

I joined originally as I wanted to work in either Canada or Australia, and I was told this would help....I haven't had any work from being a member.

Just my opinion, nothing to say I'm right or if I'm talking complete nonsense!

 

[Toddyplumb]

Thats fair enough Danny.
See I think we should all have to register because as you say it proves you are qualified. Its all the customers fault not asking to see cards and proof etc.
To call yourself an engineer you should have to be registered with the Engineering Council at least at IEng or above.