Here is a video showing how quick and easy it can be to repair a leaky pipe. If only all plumbing was this easy!

I have to admit that I am not particularly passionate about pipes or blockages. What appeals to me is the plumbing lifestyle. I love being self employed, I like a technical challenge and I don’t like being in one place for too long. I like working with people but I also like to be able to choose not to work with unpleasant people.  Plumbing offers a certain amount of freedom; to work in other parts of the UK or even abroad, part time or full time.  Its freedom that is the biggest appeal, relative to other jobs,  plumbing (and some other trades) offer you as much freedom from wage slavery as you are going to realistically get, unless you want to live in the wild.

Plumber Wages Summary

If you are going into plumbing for the money then you need to check there is demand in your area, no demand equals low wages. You will also want to go into the highest paying area which is probably gas and heating engineers but this requires the most time and work. If there is no demand in where you live you may consider relocating or commuting. Working for one of the big boys like British gas may be an option. That being said, plumbing probably won’t bless you with spectacular riches; the average plumber wage is about £26k per year. Being realistic; if you work outside of London and if you are not highly qualified or experienced you may not get close to this figure anytime soon.  Starting salaries can be around £15-20k for the newly qualified. Some experienced plumbers acting in a supervisory capacity can earn over £35000. More on wages in a future post.

Demand for Plumbers

It is often said that there is a national shortage of plumbers; this is not strictly true. Demand varies a lot from place to place. Check the yellow pages, your local papers for ads; if there are loads then you may be out of luck. Try asking a friendly local plumber if he is keeping busy.

At the end of the day the answer to this question lies within that brain of yours; you have to figure it out for yourself!

What’s plumbing got to do with plumbs?

The word Plumber comes from as far back as Roman times; back in the day, a lot of roofs where made of lead which translates to plumbum in Latin. This lead was later used to make pipe work for Roman baths and those who had the most experience working with lead where the roofers of the day. Someone skilled in the field of lead work was called a Plumbarius, eventually it was shortened to plumber (presumably because it was less of a mouthful). That’s enough of the history lesson; now let’s look at what it means to be a plumber.

The Plumbers Job Description and Prerequisites

It is what work a Plumber does that makes him a Plumber and what work he/she does varies slightly from country to country in order to meet the demands of a particular society. As the UK has the most stringent requirements in place and its where I live, I will focus this blog on the world of British plumbing.

In the UK the term Plumber encompasses a wide variety of different roles, skill levels and levels of formal qualification; essentially they are skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen who maintains and install pipe based systems that provide people and businesses with drinking water, sewage facilities, drainage and gas for gas-fired heating and. You don’t have to be a gas fitter to be a plumber and if you are a gas fitter you may not fit bathrooms or fix leaks, most people will focus on one particular area and then gain the necessary qualifications. The plumbers I know do tend to do a little bit of everything but a lot of one type of work. Unlike some other countries British plumbers do not normally work with Air conditioning systems. You only need to go outside and look up at the British sky to find out why this is. That doesn’t have to stop you getting an NVQ in air conditioning tho!

Whist no formal qualifications are required for you to work in most areas of plumbing; you will definitely need a lot of skill and knowledge. Some plumbers do everything but gas; these are called ‘wet only plumbers’ and make up the majority. The best way to get this knowledge is by gaining a qualification and working with an experienced plumber. Central heating engineers are required by law to have a certain standard of education and competence they must also be on ‘The Gas Safe Register’ weather they are self employed or an employee. You are also very unlikely to get work in any area of plumbing as an employee unless you have, or are undertaking formal training. You will need to be fairly fit and willing to work in dark, cramped and dirty conditions.

Let’s look at some of the main roles of the mighty Plumbarius! – Common Jobs.

• Gas Fitting and Maintenance (Requires qualification and registration)
• Pipe fitting
• Bathroom Fitting
• Installing domestic appliances like washing machines
• Fixing Leaks
• Clearing Blockages
• Fitting of weather proof materials, joints and flashings to roofs, chimneys and walls etc.

Hello and Welcome to the Courses 4 plumber blog! My name is Karl and this blog is the result of my research into becoming a plumber. My last two jobs where as an IT Technician and then a Taxi driver. I left IT because I got tired of being stuck in an office all day and of all the office politics that go with it, I quit the Taxis because it was extremely boring a lot of the time and some of the people you have to deal with are nothing short of horrendous. I discovered that I am the kind of person that likes to be moving from place to place and I like to be busy with technically challenging jobs…  which is what sparked (or should that be flushed?) my interest in plumbing.

I got into blogging when i wrote a guide on becoming a taxi driver. I found as well as helping myself to understand the topic it can also help other people, so it’s a win win! I am not gifted in the art of writing so please excuse any spelling and grammar that escapes my spell checker for the computer illiterate I should point out that a spell checker is not a Harry Potter character. I will always try to keep my writing as on topic and as interesting as I can!

I have seen few good guides to becoming a plumber on the net but they are all very thin on information and all of them being only a few paragraphs long , tend to leave more questions than they answer. My aim is to help you find out how to become a plumber in the UK. I will cover as comprehensively as I can, the process of starting out from the beginning. I am not here to sell a particular course so I will try not to directly mention the various training companies unless it is to do a fair comparison of them all later in the blog. Just some of the topics I hope to cover are:

• Requirements
• Plumbers Average Earnings
• Lifestyle and Working Conditions
• Best way to Become a Plumber
• Plumbing Related Qualifications and Courses
• Area of Specialisation
• Getting Gas safe registered (Formerly Corgi)
• Self Employed or Employee
• Plumbing Apprenticeships
• Plumbing NVQ/SVQ and Courses in Plumbing

I hope you will follow my journey and comment or share your own advice. I welcome anyone who would like to write a guide for the site as long as it is not blatant advertising.

This section is for plumbing related downloads, it will mainly feature documents from various official bodies that new trainee plumbers will need. you will need a pdf reader for many of the documents, if you do not already have one click here.

Gas Safe Documents

• Becoming Gas Safe Registered-[download]
• Rules of Registration-[download]
• Registration Application Form-[download]

Over the coming weeks i will be bringing you some free online plumbing courses. For this week we can take a look at a basic course, its is a long document with illustrations and you will need adobe reader to view this course and future ones. Click here to download adobe reader for free.  Or click the download button next to the course below.

Course 1 – BASIC PLUMBING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSE  [download]

Some… erm… interesting plumbing tips…