Plumbing the Depths

I assume that this is a rural phenomenon but the moment Spring arrives; when you step out of the door to find the air suddenly filled with the drone of lawnmowers and the buzz of Strimmers, you can basically forget about the phone ringing for the next four weeks.

For the next month the plumb centre will be packed with redundant plumbers whiling away their free time with tales of dare-doing and almost-doing. Meanwhile, B&Q will have become a heaving mass of humanity, frittering away their fortunes on compost and bedding plants.

I imagine that in London, where ‘gardening’ consists of buying a couple of busy-lizzies and trying to squeeze them into a window box, the plumbers will still be racing around town like Schumacher on amphetamines, but out here in the sticks it’s as quiet as a quiet day… only quieter.

The act of murdering some plants because they are the wrong plants growing in the wrong place, ripping up others because they are the right plants but growing in the wrong place, planting the right plants in the right place then ripping them out again three months later because you’ve forgotten that they are the right plants in the right place and now think they are the wrong plants in the wrong place, is called ‘Gardening’. I prefer to call it ‘an utter bloody waste of time.’, however, judging by afternoon TV schedules and the hive of activity in the local gardening centre, I would appear to be in the minority.

No matter how hard you try to turn your back on gardening it takes just one look down the road, past the serried ranks of pristine lawns and luxuriant flower beds, for the phrase ‘If you can’t beat them, join them‘ to bludgeon its way into your head.

I once tried to convince my wife that the phrase ‘If you can’t beat them, just bloody well ignore them‘, would work just as well but it was all to no avail and so, in order to keep up appearances, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the realm of the garden.

In all fairness, when we first moved here our garden was in need of a little attention. The previous owners had, for some perverse reason, striven to create a back garden with a ‘gravel-pit cum building site’ theme. Forget your pitch-fork and secateurs what was required here was a bulldozer and Semtex. Not content with the Chesil-beach look they then went on to dig three ponds, cunningly locating them in such a way as to ensnare the unwary.

Actually, ‘Pond’ doesn’t accurately describe these watery holes in the ground. The word ‘pond’ hints at crystal clear water filled with koi carp, shy roach, bashful tench and the occasional extravert perch. These were gloomy wastes, home to green floaty stuff and not much else. At least that’s what I thought before I drained them.

In the end they turned out to be home to an inordinate amount of frogs and Newts. I was a little worried at the time, as the ‘Great Crested Newt’ is a protected species. However, these things looked neither great, nor crested. In fact they looked like exactly what they were… evicted.

Which reminds me! Where does the phrase ‘pissed as a newt‘ come from? I mean, you don’t look at a Newt and immediately think “Wow! There’s a wild party animal. Look at that amphibian go!”

Granted, I could have been observing them the morning after the night before. Perhaps if I’d ventured down to the garden in the wee small hours I’d have discovered a writhing mass of Newts, knocking back alcopops and hosting wild tequila parties. Maybe the turpid, befuddled, creatures I collected that afternoon were just displaying the inevitable consequences of a night of largess? Mind you, suddenly finding themselves ripped from their watery home and dropped into a tupperware bowl probably wasn’t helping their mood at all.

Just in case they were ‘Great’ or ‘Crested’, and just in case there was a man from the ministry lurking in the vicinity, I took my newt collection around to my neighbour, who - being a kindly soul - offered them board and lodgings in his own pond. It was a much better pond with a much better rock to reside under and to make sure they were entirely happy I left them a couple of bottles of Bacardi Breezer, just to tide them through the weekend.

Having disposed of the ponds and most of the gravel the only other major issue in the garden was the Willow tree. It was a lovely tree but at over 40ft high it was just blocking out too much light, so I decided to pollard it.

I’ll admit that the word ‘pollard’ and the act of ‘pollarding’ is hardly commonplace but I was astonished that no one seemed to have the foggiest notion what I was talking about. Even my neighbour, who shows all the signs of being a keen gardener, didn’t have a clue what I was about.

“You want to Pollack your willow tree?” Was his bemused reply when I explained why I wanted to borrow his chainsaw.

I was tempted to explain that ‘Pollarding’ means cutting a tree back to it’s main trunk so that it sprouts loads of little branches, which, belonging to a willow tree, will then arch gracefully to the ground and create a vision of loveliness. Meanwhile, ‘pollacking’, if it means anything at all, means beating up a tree with a member of the cod family. Whilst this will no doubt have a pronounced affect on the Pollack, it’s unlikely to have any effect on the willow tree - other than maybe making it smell of fish for a few weeks.

However, my time was limited so I just said “Yup, I’m going to give that thar willow a good old fashioned pollacking.” and left it at that.

It took most of the day to remove all the main branches but by early evening my tree had been reduced to a 20ft high trunk, with a little V-sign at the top where the two main branches had been.

“You’ve killed it!” Was my wife’s immediate comment. My neighbour was a little bit more diplomatic, “Are you sure you haven’t killed it?” was his remark.  In fact for months afterwards the entire village seemed to regard me as a savage murderer of defenceless trees.

“But I’ve only Pollarded it!” I kept trying to explain to people.

“What you do with fish in the privacy of your own home is no business of mine, but you’ve killed that lovely tree, so you ‘ave.” Was a not uncommon retort.

As winter went by the defiant V-sign, atop the bare, denuded trunk, showed absolutely no sign of life and I must admit that I was starting to get a bit worried myself. Not only was I being accused of deciduous destruction but I now had a 20ft high ‘fuck-off‘ sign at the bottom of my garden - not the greatest aid to neighbourly relations. Then, with the first sign of Spring, a few branches began to sprout from the top and before long the accusations of murder most foul had ceased. By Summer the branches were sweeping the ground and the tree looked absolutely stunning.

That was all last year and that was all enjoyable; real gardening, manly gardening; all hard hats and chainsaws, wellies full of mud and pockets full of newts. This year it’s all been namby-pamby girlie stuff; picking flowers to plant, mowing lawns and weeding.

I fear that my wife has caught a bad case of ‘Gardening’ and seems hell bent on spending what little money we have on plants. This is despite the acknowledged fact that until they develop a plant which rises from the ground sporting a huge “Bought this Spring in B&Q” sticker, they are almost certain to get ‘weeded’ into oblivion before the Summer’s out.

Personally I’d rather miss out the middleman and just feed the compost heap with  five pound notes.

I’ve had a number of emails from people looking to move into Plumbing so I thought I’d write a short narrative on the subject.

First off, if you are being drawn in to plumbing by tales of vast wealth, Porsche transit vans and solid gold Armani basin spanners, think again. The average wage of a plumber in the UK is £26K per annum. Not a bad wage really, but this ‘average’ is quite distorted. This figure includes the wages of Central London plumbers, it omits to mention that 95% of plumbers have been in the industry for more than 20 years, and to make this figure even more warped it includes Gas and Heating engineers, or ‘the Gentry’ as we mere mortals refer to them… when ‘rich-gits’ just doesn’t seem to hit the right note .

In a nutshell, if you’re currently stacking shelves at Tesco’s or your job seems to revolve around the phrase ”Would you like fries with that?” you’ll probably do better in plumbing… but you have as much chance of earning £26K within 3 years as I have of learning to braid snot over the weekend.

The other myth is that there is a nationwide shortage of plumbers. Yes, there are some areas of the country where plumbers are as thin on the ground as pink Unicorns but there are also many areas of the country that are positively awash with plumbers. So do a quick check. How many plumbers advertise each week in your local paper? Less than five and you might be in an area that has a shortage. More than 10 and there are lots of local plumbers already struggling. So do your research before taking the plunger.

If avarice and myth are not driving your venture into plumbing you could be onto a winner. So what’s the best way of going about it?

If you’re a school leaver the best route is to get taken on by a plumber, do your apprenticeship and get your NVQ 2 & 3. Finding a company to take you on can be difficult, so if you’re really interested in plumbing do a certificate level 2 in Plumbing as an evening class. For the first year this is exactly the same course as the NVQ 2, aside from an exam in employment law. It’s always possible to change from the Certificate to the NVQ during the 1st year and it gives you a whole 12 months to find an employer, whilst also showing how keen and committed you are.

There are umpteen schemes and grants available if you hunt around so the odds are you wont even have to pay for the 1st year of your course, and if you do it’s rarely more than about £400 for the year, which you can always off-set by applying for a career development loan.

The main advantages of doing it this way are: it’s cheap,  you can do it two evenings a week - so you can earn money on the side and dip your toe into the world of plumbing rather than throw yourself in and hope it works out. You’ll be meeting people who are already working for plumbing companies which, assuming you don’t have the social skills of a damp log, should vastly increase your changes of getting an apprenticeship.

If you’re of a more mature nature it’s still worth trying to find a plumber to take you on as an apprentice. Yes, you’ll be on the minimum wage for at least two years but it’s the broadest introduction into the industry. More and more companies are realising that older applicants are often more reliable and committed than school leavers, so the chances of landing an apprenticeship are not as remote as you might think. Again, getting on a part time certificate level 2 course might be a better move than an intensive course. It can be done without leaving your current job, you have a year to reflect and gain more information, you get to meet other plumbers and decide if this really is for you… and all before you’ve spent a small fortune on intensive training.

So why do an intensive course? Well we did one because my mate’s working hours were so long that he didn’t have a chance to do an evening course, and because I was redundant and didn’t fancy a part-time course. It cost an arm and a leg and, on reflection, I don’t thing the cost was really justified. Yes, the training we received was superb, but the difference in price between a college course and an intensive course is just too large.

The most important thing to ask before signing up for an intensive course is what qualification will you get from it? There are still companies that just offer an internal ‘certificate’. This is very nice of them and no doubt the resulting certificate will look very impressive on the living room wall. Alas, the only people who’ll recognise the certificate are the guys that hand them out and you… because it’s hanging on your living room wall.

These days many of them talk about delivering an NVQ2 in a couple of months. I can’t see how this is possible as the NVQ requires supervised work based assessments, which would seem impossible to do unless you’re already working for a plumber, in which case why are you doing an intensive course? I suspect that they are just offering the ‘theory’ side of the NVQ (C&G 6129), which is a good certificate, but it’s not a full NVQ.

Many companies just mention that you’ll get a City and Guild qualification. This is better than their own internal certificates but what’s the exact qualification? For example a C&G 3791 is a ‘Profile of Achievement’. This is not exactly the most illuminating of titles and I suspect that if you took this certificate to a prospective employer the lights might go off all together.

Our experience was that, whilst the course we did was not recognised by the industry, it did cover everything you’d find in an NVQ2, without the work based assessment, and gave us enough experience to get started. However, of all the people who did the course at the same time as us, about 50% went back to their old jobs within 12 months and I dare say as little as 10-20% are still at it now. 

If you are thinking of going self employed most of these intensive courses will deliver enough to get you up and running but you’re best off following this up with more ‘traditional’ training. If you want to work for someone else I’d first check if the certificate at the end of the course is something your prospective employer recognises and if they approve of intensive courses as the way to achieve these certificates - most don’t.

So, if you’re still determined to plumb your way to happiness, what can you expect from the job itself?

If you’re looking to go self employed then the chances are you’ll spend most of your time fitting bathrooms, changing taps and fixing leaks. Most intensive courses will prepare you for much of this, but for bathrooms you’ll also need basic joinery and tiling skills. What most courses tend to omit are the little things i.e. you’ll do a lot of your work in tiny, tiny little spaces, waste pipes come in a variety of types, which aren’t compatible with each other and Kitchen sinks are usually fitted by people who have no intention of every coming back to service or replace the taps. In other words, kitchen taps are an absolute b*tch to replace.

There’s a temptation, when you start-up, to do everything; the plumbing, the joinery, the tiling, the plastering, the electrics. I would suggest that you fight this temptation. When we started up the best bit of advice we received was to “get good at one thing first”. So we would do the plumbing and the joinery but bring in other tradesmen for everything else. The advantage of this was that we got to know a load of other tradesmen in our area, built up good working relationships with them and got referrals in return. We even got paid by the client for organising everyone else so, whilst we didn’t make quite as much money, we got to spend it on a pub lunch, whilst everyone else sweated away in bathrooms and lofts.

These days we tend to do most of our own tiling, only passing on the work if we’re too busy or if the tiling looks a bit complicated. We still pass on all the electrics, mainly because the testing equipment required by Part P costs an arm and a leg, our insurance would go up if we did move in to electrics and we really can’t be a*sed to spend ours days poking cables down stud walls and crawling through lofts.

We find plumbing fun and really enjoy the lifestyle  but it’s not necessarily suited to everyone. For starters you can spend a lot of time working on your own. It can be stressful, kneeling in a strangers kitchen trying to look calm and knowledgeable  as jets of water shoot over your head. It isn’t a job for big people as most of the places you find yourself working in are either small, tiny or decidedly compact. If you have any DIY to do, get it done before you become a plumber as once your career involves fitting kitchens and bathrooms all day, the last thing you want to do when you get home is fit kitchens and bathrooms all evening… and, most importantly, do you have to have the right ears for the job? 

As a tradesman it’s pretty much d’rigour that you can tuck a pencil behind your ear and then, come wind, rain or hail said pencil remains firmly behind said ear. Alas, and to my eternal shame, I can’t do this. I can just about tuck a pencil behind my ear but I then need to walk around all day like a catwalk model if it’s to stand any chance of staying there. This can be pretty disconcerting to the unwary customer and it doesn’t do much for your plumbing either. I’m currently working on an idea involving a Velcro ear stud and a reel of sellotape … but it’s still in the design stage. So if you have ears of the Lineker-esque persuasion either turn your back on the tradesman’s life or carry an awful lot of pencils about your person.

Being your own boss, setting your own working hours, working locally. Can you achieve a more relaxing lifestyle? There was a time, just a few days ago in fact, when I might have agreed with you.

On Monday we got an emergency call. Their driveway was flooded and the water was running downhill to fill the garage. But not to worry, it looked like rainwater not sewage. We leapt into the Plumbmobile with a happy heart and a rodding kit.

A few minutes later we were stood at the edge of a driveway, watching a glutinous brown river of mashed up tissue paper and ominous brown squidgy things snake past and pool in what was once a nice double garage.

The client appeared on the opposite bank of the River Stinks. “I think it might be sewage after all!” He cried.

No sh*t Sherlock!

People always think that this scenario must be the worst aspect of plumbing. Yet, to be honest, it isn’t. Dealing with sewage is a bit like squeezing black heads; a bit gross, but oddly, very oddly… Satisfying.

We donned our elbow length rubber gloves and began lifting various drain covers to discover which way everything was supposed to flow and therefore where the blockage was likely to be. After about 20 minutes the covers were all up and we’d pretty much figured it out.

I was rodding away merrily when the effulent levels suddenly began to drop. So it was with a distinct feeling of triumph that I started pulling the rods back. Job done.

Strange to relate but there is actually a technique to using a rodding kit. Since every metre length of pipe is connected to the next with a screw thread you need to twist clockwise as you push and pull to ensure everything stays connected…

“Didn’t we have a rubber disc on the end of that?” My mate asked as the last rod emerged.

“Ar…” I replied, remembering to twist clockwise just that teensy, weensy, tiny, little bit too late. We were now missing a 4 inch rubber disc. A disc that was almost certainly going to block the drain again, on account of the drain being 4 inches wide. Huston, we have a problem!

The next drain cover was only about 10 metres away so I figured that we ought to be able to push the disc into it using the rods themselves. So that’s what we did.

After 5 minutes of dismal failure I handed the rods over to my mate to see if he could do any better. As I watched him feed the rods back into the drain a thought struck me.

“Wasn’t this a bit longer when we started?” I asked. We stood back and had a good, long, look at the connected rods. They certainly seemed shorter.

“How many rods are there in a kit?” My mate asked. I picked up the bag and checked. According to the label ten rods came with the kit… We currently had seven.

So. Jammed down the drain there was now a 4 inch rubber disc and 3 metres of plastic piping. Huston, we REALLY do have a problem!

To exacerbate our predicament, the two drains were 10 metres apart but we now only had seven metres of rod; not enough to be able to push the rubber disc and the missing rods out of the pipe and into the next drain cover.

We stared at the drains for a while but there was really only one solution.

“We could always buy another rodding kit?” I suggested.

“But we’ve already lost one!”

There wasn’t a lot of choice really. “In for a penny, in for a pound?” I replied, trying my level best to be cheerful.

I returned from Travis Perkins with a new kit. We now had a total of 17m of rod, more than enough to push the trapped equipment out of the pipe. Or so we thought. Half an hour later and we’d achieved bugger all. We were getting desperate.

“We ought to try this with the rubber disc on the end.” I suggested.

“We’ve already lost one in there. How much do you want to lose?”

“Well, short of pouring liquid cement down there it’s unlikely to get any more blocked.” My mate pondered this statement then reluctantly handed over the rubber disc.

Five minutes later and the drain had now captured 2 rubber discs and a further 2m of plastic pipe. Bugger!

To add insult to injury the van radio was now blasting out Kasabian’s latest hit. It sounded suspiciously like “Shoot the rodder.” I quickly handed the rodding kit to back to my mate.

We still had a few options left. We could ring a mate who worked for a notable drain clearing company, AKA the legendary “Dyno-Dave”. Or, we could dig up the road, crack into the pipe, recover our equipment, replace the broken pipe, fill in the hole and quickly re tarmac the road.

These were both good and perfectly viable options. However, my personal favourite was to run away and deny everything. Alas, there was an obvious difficulty with this option; damn that van side signage!

The odds of Dyno-Dave being available in the next few hours was small. The odds of us digging up 10 metres of underground soil pipe for less than a £1000 was even smaller. In the end we decided that, since the drain couldn’t get anymore blocked than it already was, we might as well put the corkscrew connector on the remaining rods and give the whole lot a really, really good push.

To effect this, my mate gave the man-hole a baleful stare and boldly went, where few men have gone before - down the drain. I meanwhile opted for the far more sensible role of kneeling in the road and peering down into the next drain hole cover. As my mate pushed and shoved I hoped to see our lost equipment appear.

Hearty grunts and the scrape of plastic rods echoed down the drain, but nothing emerged. After about 5 minutes of this I gave up hope and wandered over to watch my mate struggling down the drain.

“It’s not working.” I told him miserably, trying to remember the terms and conditions of our public liability insurance.

He ignored me and continued to ram his rod up the clients drain. In other circumstances this would have been an amusing euphemism. In this case it was merely a demonstration of my friends inability to look facts in the face - we’d failed. We’d came, we’d seen and we’d stuffed it full of rubber bungs and plastic pipes. Veni, vidi, exulcero, as Julius might have said… if it had rhymed.

I trudged back to the other drain whilst my mate continued his fight against reality. Sighing I dropped to my knees and peered once more into the now familiar drain. Hang on! A rubber bung lay in the middle of the drain. As I watched a second was forced into view.

I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see a crap encrusted ring of rubber, which is not a statement you can say every day.

Now familiar with the bottom of the drains, my mate climbed down and retrieved the bungs, still attached to their rods. It had taken over two hours; 15 minutes to clear the drain, 95 minutes to get the drain clearing equipment back again.

It was only the fact that it was 11am that stopped us retiring to the pub for the rest of the day. That and being paid by cheque.

Last November (The Guild of what?) I waxed lyrical about a bloke who had run an advert in the local newspaper going on about how p*ss-poor plumbers were. But he was different! He cared deeply for his craft, he was a joy to have in your house, he knew all about customer care AND he was a recognised “Master Plumber” to boot.

His qualifications sounded wonderful - a member of the ‘Guild of Master Plumbers’, no less. Yet, upon investigation, this guild turned out to be a company offering intensive training courses and this bloke’s “qualifications” amounted to a whole 5 days training. Wow! 5 days! He MUST be a ‘Master’ of his trade.

Yesterday I received a comment on this particular blog - (Here) from Rob Skinner and I thought I’d reply to it in the blog itself. In the meantime I’ve recently added another post outlining my thoughts on plumbing as a career, if ya wanna read it it’s here

Dear Rob,

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that your courses are great and I certainly never suggested that you were a cowboy outfit. In fact my only objection with the “Guild of Master Plumbers” is the name. I think it’s grossly misleading.

The “Guild” bit p*sses me off but is probably an acceptable moniker. The dictionary definition is “an organization of persons with related interests, goals, etc., esp. one formed for mutual aid or protection” and this probably describes yourselves perfectly well.

Yet most people associate the word ‘guild’ with a group that  represents a trade. A body offering help and support to the tradesman, but also offering assurances to the customer. Looking at your website I can’t see that you offer any assurances to potential customers. Do you kick people out of the guild if a number of customers make valid complaints about a member? Do you have any complaints/arbitration procedure? If so, how do customers make such complaints - there is no information on your website? If you don’t, what does your guild offer the consumer?

The main thing that gets my goat though is the “Master Plumbers” bit. Can you really tell me, hand on heart, that someone who’s received 5 days training is a ‘Master’ of anything, let alone plumbing? I dare say that after 5 days training on the bins I’d probably have got the hang of things. However, if I then announced to my colleagues that I was a “Master bin man” it’s not improbably that I’d wake up an hour later under 3 tonnes of rotting vegetables.

From a marketing viewpoint it’s a brilliant name (I only wish I’d thought of it myself) but your graduates are not, by any stretch of the imagination, “master” plumbers. Having said that, the “Guild of barely trained plumbers”, whilst a far more accurate description, doesn’t have the same ring.

Personally, I think the whole NVQ training process as it stands is ludicrous. We get CV’s all the time from 16 year olds desperate to get an apprenticeship so that they can get on a standard two year NVQ 2 course. If they aren’t working for a plumber they can’t get on the course. Yet, if they aren’t trained, most plumbers don’t have the resources to take them on and supervise them. It’s often a catch 22 situation for teenagers and a complete brick wall for the over 25’s.

As you mention, there is no 4 week NVQ course and our C&G qualification isn’t an NVQ. We’ve had to set up a limited company, employ an NVQ 3 qualified plumber to supervise our work and then be his apprentices. All this so we can complete the standard 2 year course! Ludicrous situation but the only way we could get going in a matter of months yet still gain the recognised qualifications.

The industry needs alternative routes to qualification that are accepted by the likes of the IPHE. Your company fulfils a genuine need. I just don’t think that calling yourselves “The Guild of Master Plumbers” is going to endear you, or your courses, to the industry.

Regarding your invitation. We rarely venture beyond the boundaries of Lincolnshire but if I do find myself in anywhere as exotic as Leamington Spa I’ll try and pop in for a cuppa, always assuming you’re still talking to me.

All the best.