ok..... well thanks to those who replied in a friendly and helpful manner, a service engineer it is then.
now then mr puddle.....
i was totally with you until you decided to get sarcastic and rude.
number one..... i said i wanted to specialise in the whole drawing and designing side of things....that certainly doesnt mean i want to ''hide behind a desk'' if i did then i would be a pretty little secretary like most men think women should be in the trade.
That is not why i decided to study plumbing.....i want to get my hands dirty and do what aplumber does.Not that i need to justify myself to you.
But as you know there are many diff things you can decide to do in plumbing, or at least thats how i have been taught.
to be a plumber doesnt mean you do unblocking toilets all day long.
you may want to specialise in unvented systems for eg, or guttering, or boilers, and yet its still called a plumber.. so ALL i was asking was what is it called so that i can look it up and decide if thats what i want to train more in.Not be judged in what i decide.
sara.
Sara,
I think that you will find, that the name for a person who designs the plumbing in a building other than a simple house/shop,etc, (which is decided either on site or by the architect) is called a plumbing design engineer, possibly a mechanical services design (but then it would take in the other parts of the design like heating, fire services, electrical, etc), and your time will mostly be in an office, with visits to sites and clients,
BUT THERE WILL BE NO GETTING YOUR HANDS DIRTY , the best design engineers are those who were taken off the site, after taking an apprenticeship in plumbing, and then did further training for the design of plumbing, this was how it was done in the "dinosaur days", and the designer could appreciate the problems to be found on site work
Having said this there will always be a need for a good hands on plumber who can design the plumbing and heating for small works, and houses, etc, and install it
Another thing that can influence your decision is where you live, country or town, in my time I have been in a design office, working on the design for the plumbing for, motels, shopping centres, a Gentelmens Club, medium rise office blocks, worked on the tools, at the Barbican London, Ultra luxury flats in London, The Old Baily central criminal court, the servicing hangar for the 747 aircraft at London Heathrow, pharmaceuticals laboratories, university laboratories,, schools, and also when working in the country, private water supplies, and septic tank drainage
The materials I have worked with range from gold plated fittings, large bore copper tube with spelter brazed loose flange connections, and hand formed branches, right through to 12" cast Iron rainwater drainage, and water mains, taking in, plastics as well, both PVC and polythene water mains, polythene gas mains, and PVC drainage, I also worked in the middle east, schools in Saudi, a small portable desalination seawater to drinking water plant in the now U A E
The choice is yours, but remember that most plumbers who get their hands dirty, as you put it, do not get to be in an office and put pen to paper and design the plumbing, those who do, stay in the office and do not get out on the site, and get their hands dirty
