Electrical career

Hi

My only advice really is to try and get with an electrician I know this might be difficult as like me with age etc.

I have done night courses etc, but you will never get that fully competent sparky experienced sparky status.

Looking back now things would of been much easier working alongside a colleague where you just pick things up daily.

But it has helped in my career path got me two jobs and like yourself doing jobs at home. It will open doors. Plus this site is very helpful!

Good luck

 

How would you feel if someone who had wired a couple of sockets and lights in a booth got let loose in your house.
They would not have a clue and your house would be an experiment.
The only way to be a proper Electrician is to serve an apprenticeship and go on day release or block release to college.
The Electrical and Plumbing trade has been given a bad name due to the 5 day and 5 week wonders.
Go back on the tools in your own trade.

 

I've seen a lot of people offer to work for free, could anyone have someone working with them all day and then see them go home without a bean. If not before you know it you will be handing over 80 sheets a day that you cant afford to loose.

 

In my time doing maintenance work I have seen a lot of contractors so called professionals make shocking mistakes.

I thought the same asked to work for free but still found it very difficult. I'm not trying to put you off or be negative.

People slagging off five day courses etc don't see it from the other side of things where we haven't the chance or luck getting with a sparks.

They don't give out apprentiships like they used too.

On my course one colleague is with an electrical firm the other has set up his own business. Top of the class studentof the year works in retail.

I just meant it's a whole lot easier if you can get with a sparks.

Good luck.

 

Your wasting your time mate. At your age with your responsibilities the only thing really available to you are the 'become a domestic installer in 5 week' courses. Unfortunatly, what the places that offer these courses do not tell you is that these 'qualifications' are good for nothing. They are not recognised by the JIB and you will not get an 'Electrician' grading on a CSCS card. To become an electrician you will need to have served an apprenticeship, completed an NVQ level 3, completed your technical knowledge (2330) and obtained your AM2.

Go and learn to be a plumber or a brickie. They are on far more money than sparks, have a quarter of the learning time.

 

I do think there are less sparks around than there were a couple of years ago, our Elecsa assessment is due and they wanted to do it the same week we renewed the membership, usually they were running 3 or 4 months behind so you only ended up with an assesment every 16-18 months or so.

Maybe a lot of the chancers are being found out, building control for instance tend to be a lot more on the ball than they used to be.

 

Or they have all moved to Stroma.

 

You need to train with a sparky and not just a domestic installer. You need to get experience in all aspects of electrical installation and testing and it will take years. You then need to get the relevant qualifications which won't be cheap. Even after all this there's no garuntee of a job at then and if it. You could choose to go self emplyeed but that's a while different ball game with another large outlay to consider.

 

Plus there's no saying you'll enjoy it. Doing a job day in day out is different to a bit of diy.

 

Stroma looks like one of these companies that sign loads of members up enticing them with cheap deals and then after a year or two the price shoots up to the same as the others, hoping no-one will be arsed to change again. Just like the mobile phone providers do.

 

Both my son and I moved sidewards into the trade, and as already said you need a mentor some one to on a day to day basis show you the ropes. I started as an apprentice mechanic and moved before I was out of my time to an Auto Electrician, I applied for a job in Algeria and found Auto and Main electrics were very closely linked and had to do both, as a result after 2.5 years I returned to UK with quite a bit of experience however was lacking rules and regulations. Again I ended up with a job with a mixture of both extra low voltage and low voltage working on traffic lights and submersible pumps. The point I am making it was not a swap from one to the other over night but a gradual swap with other people who were willing to impart their knowledge. I ended up work abroad again Falklands, Hong Kong and on my return decided to brush up on the rules and regulations and took a series of collage courses of the type you have pointed to. But this was after I already knew a fair bit and had been in the trade many years.

My son was similar side ways move, I was working as an alarm engineer and the firm dropped my wages so I left, as you do. Phone call asked what they could do to get me back, answer was offer my son a job, which was done, he became my number 2. He then got work house bashing not really as an electrician he was one minimum wage and did as he was told. i.e. see this house well I want the rest wired the same. This was before Part P. He then returned to Alarm installation and then went self employed. He however by this time had me and I would work for nothing just to keep his business going. Finally he saw some sense and went cards in again by this time like me he had done the series of night classes and is now Electrical Engineer for a glass bottle manufacturer and just finishing his level 5 qualifications I am the same at level 5 which is the lowest degree standard.

However today breaking in is harder, the collages had ratings and other changes and the day release course rocketed in price what in 2000 cost use £120 for three courses PAT testing, BS7671, and inspection and testing now costs over £200 each. As a result less people do them and in the main it is day release or block release or nothing. Both my son and I have both become electrical engineers and we are both now holding degrees but it was both long, and hard to get there and my son already had done a degree course in maths, and believe me you need the maths to get your level 5 qualifications.

When some one asks me to imagine a number I think of J. What I have to remember as far back as I can go we Palmer's have been good at maths, from the master mariner, to building the shipping empire at Jarrow. The Palmer line has had engineers my great great whatever granddad fitted the first steam engine with a condenser in a ship. So dad was an engineer, as was his dad and so on. He was technical superintendent of power station when I started and my father-in-law was electrical director on local hospital board so you could say it's in the Palmer's blood.

So although I moved sidewards into the trade as did my son we had been brought up with it. My dad talked about the Power station when I was a small boy and explained how to do things likely well beyond most boys got taught. Both my son and I are radio hams, we have played with electrics all our life.

OK head of family now runs a stud farm for horses or something like that, never met the 5th Barron myself, but to move sidewards really electrics needs to be in the blood.

 

I used to be an electrician until the government labelled me a cowboy. I've been doing electrics since I were 12, had my first shock at 13. But I did no apprenticeship. I've got c and guilds 236 qualifications.

 

You need to part with a not insignificant amount of money each year, if you don't your work immediately becomes dangerous and can kill someone at any time. Anyone who gives their hard earned to a scam provider are top notch, the ability to stuff 20 cables in a 5 amp connector is a wonder to behold.

 

I would quite happily part with my money to sign up to a national register that you could not get on unless you had the same qualifications as required by the JIB to gain an 'Electricians' card.

 

I would be quite happy if they scrapped all of these money making schemes set up by the government to make these private organisations rich on the back of electricians under the pretence of safety and keeping cowboys out of the trade. Many on here would quite clearly advise a customer to have a more expensive product or system than is needed and happily charge them for it, just because they want to play it safe.

 

Years ago an electrician was an electrician and could more from industrial to commercial to domestic with ease today safety certificates have made it so even if you have the skills you can't move sector to sector without having to take tests and pay out money. Years ago the Union decided if you were qualified and it was same Union all sectors then the government stopped the closed shop agreement and replaced it with their own closed shop agreement.

I feel the schemes are just the same as a closed shop and as such are illegal.