Cow boy plumber

[Ridgeway]

What ever i did it would involve running a tap through the female thread on the radiator, rule No1 in the “some messed up my fitting” book😉

 

[Mr Celine]

I have new valves I wangled for free. Anyway he’s refusing to remove the stripped one to avoid draining the system. He says the pin hole filler fluid is worth a try first. £12 a tub.
My logic is fit new valve and use fluid then walk away done. Not just a cow boy but a very lazy one at that.

Why does he want to drain the system to remove a radiator?

 

[Milzy]

Why does he want to drain the system to remove a radiator?

Well he probably meant the rad. It takes 27 lots of a plastic bowl we had. He’s too lazy to drain it off then fit a new valve. He will scarper & we will call in a pro plumber to sort out. I want that tap set anyway as I only have small ones in my collection.

 

[stephec]

Yep it's all 'modules' these days, do it once and get the tick that gets you the cerstifficate and lets them loose on the general public.

That sound like a bloke where Mrs Stephec used to work.

He did a plumbing course and then did a job for a woman at work, her review was, 'he had to come back a few times but he got it right in the end.' 😂

Around 1986 whilst doing my OND our general studies lecturer said to us, 'in about ten years time they'll be a skills shortage in this country because there's no proper training or apprenticeships anymore,' if I ever meet him again I'm going to ask him for his lottery numbers.

 

[raleighnut]

That sound like a bloke where Mrs Stephec used to work.

He did a plumbing course and then did a job for a woman at work, her review was, 'he had to come back a few times but he got it right in the end.' 😂

Around 1986 whilst doing my OND our general studies lecturer said to us, 'in about ten years time they'll be a skills shortage in this country because there's no proper training or apprenticeships anymore,' if I ever meet him again I'm going to ask him for his lottery numbers.

When I did my City & Guilds as a cabinet maker (30yrs ago) the college had 2 courses, either 2 years 'full time' (5 days a week) or trade lads (apprentices) 3yrs at 1 1/2 days
When it came to the exams (some course work* and 3 written exams) of the 30 or so full timers like me around 60% of us passed of the apprentices (@20) none of them passed. I looked at some of their work submitted as examples of their skill it was abysmal, dovetails you could see daylight through, veneering that was poorly matched or had gaps and 'filler' used to hide poor joints.
I think there were a couple of main differences though, us 'full timers' were there to aquire skills whereas the trade lads were sent by their employers and also the course was on 'hand skills' so for instance I can saw timber straight and square where the trade lads very rarely picked up a saw or a chisel at work everything was operating machinery. The 'head of department/senior lecturer' was an old guy who was actually quite famous having been featured on a BBC 'short film' called 'The Bowlturner' back in the 1950's and was a good friend of Arthur Negus and had a policy of allowing any of us to use the workshop as long as there was enough bench space when we were not scheduled to be there so I was in there just cutting 'practice pieces' joining 2 bits of wood together by Dovetails, finger joints and 'through tenons' then sawing off that joint

* Some 'set pieces' and other things we had designed ourselves

and making another one just to practice/hone my hand skills. After the exams Len (Leonard Ball) said "So all that time b*ggering about cutting joints wasn't wasted then, your pieces were amongst the best I've ever seen" so I told him I'd done the course in order to learn not just for summat to do in a recession (we got 'grants' back then)

 

[Slick]

That sound like a bloke where Mrs Stephec used to work.

He did a plumbing course and then did a job for a woman at work, her review was, 'he had to come back a few times but he got it right in the end.' 😂

Around 1986 whilst doing my OND our general studies lecturer said to us, 'in about ten years time they'll be a skills shortage in this country because there's no proper training or apprenticeships anymore,' if I ever meet him again I'm going to ask him for his lottery numbers.

You know they are still saying that, right?

 

[Milzy]

I think I’ll fix myself. Boiler off. Left valve closed. Undo valve, let rad drain into buckets. Tap bottom left 1/2 inch female. New valve to paste up. Re fit. Open right top plug, drop in anti corrosion fluid, tighten plug back up. When all nuts are tight then re open left valve. Put more pressure in boiler 2.5 bar. Then bleed all rads with key.
Make a strong cup of tea.

 

[stephec]

You know they are still saying that, right?

I'm a service engineer and mainly go into food and pharma factories, maybe ten or fifteen years ago I noticed that some places were doing proper apprenticeships again, not many but a few places, and nothing like the good old days, but there's one guy I know who I watched go from an apprentice to a supervisory level at Kellogg's in Manchester.

Makes you wonder how these kind of places keep going though.

 

[Slick]

I'm a service engineer and mainly go into food and pharma factories, maybe ten or fifteen years ago I noticed that some places were doing proper apprenticeships again, not many but a few places, and nothing like the good old days, but there's one guy I know who I watched go from an apprentice to a supervisory level at Kellogg's in Manchester.

Makes you wonder how these kind of places keep going though.

I'm a manager in a construction college and we have been doing proper apprenticeships for years, and as you would expect, demand for free training is huge. Things have went back the way, now we no longer deliver the NVQ alongside the trade qualification, and the funding model has turned everything on its head as employers are expected to pay more upfront costs before claiming it back. Its a complicated business now.