How do I become a Corgi registered gas fitter?

[FOC]

I am eager to become a Corgi (Gas Safe) registered gas fitter but am having trouble finding the right courses and would appreciate any help or guidance on what I need to do or where I need to go to achieve this.

I have spoken to Corgi who have given me advice of level of qualifications required and advised me to contact my local college. Unfortunately, my local college has not been consistent with the information it has given me stating different prices and course start dates - they are now saying that the course I need won't be available to start until September 2009 but only a week before this they advised they have courses I can join starting every month.

Basically, I am looking for a course which starts as soon as possible, can be fast tracked due to level of competancy, is in Birmingham and gives me the qualifications I need.

I have tried web searches to find out more information but the companies coming up are not local and so are not suitable, and there just doesn't seem to be one place where I can get the information I really need.

If anyone has any advice that may help me I would be very appreciative.

Kind regards,

 

[ginantonic]

Try ringing Business Link. They should be able to point you in the right direction.

 

[CKG]

There are 2 ways you can do this. And i'm coming from the angle that you are not already a qualified plumber.

1) Start as a pukka apprentice and follow the well trodden path - City & Guilds quals etc.

Once you have your ACS certificates from Logic present them to CORGI or GSR and hey presto you are good to go.


Way 2

You do the fast track course. The rub is you still have to have to find a part time gas fitters 'job' so you can prove you know how to do the practical side if you have no prior industry experience.

Though I suspect some more questionable testing centers will have arrangements in place to make sure you get the box ticked whatever happens.

You can't just book a course with no prior knowledge on gas and hope to get taught what you need to know to pass nor can you swat up and become a book read expert.

You need to know how to do the practical side of things in a real house where you are responsible for the safety of real people.

Look up East Cheshire Training and Assessment on google - That's who provides all my training. They have details on thier site about the fast track course.

 

[CKG]

To save you the hassle...

http://www.eastcheshiretraining.co.uk/apl_course.html

 

[FOC]

Thanks for your advice and for the weblink which have both been really helpful.

I have looked up City & Guilds which you mentioned and they have a list of registered training centres in my area which I'll be able to contact and hopefully find a course that I can join to get things moving.

Thanks again for your help and for taking the time to reply.

Kind regards,

 

[Eureka EFS]

Original post timed 20.21, solution by 21.56. Good work CKG!

 

[G. Lasagne]

like ckg said there are several different ways to get your ACS.

my former apprentice (now full time) did one day a week at college and the rest of the time getting practical experience, after 2 years he sat and passed his acs, he is now doing a third year (nvq level 3) in design and commercial type stuff which means i lose him for a day a week but he is becoming highly trained the right way.
The course will cost you and your employer nothing if your eligible for an apprenticeship.

The other way costs between £3000-£8000 but can have you qualified in about 3-6 months, and although it will be harder finding a job using this method there are employers who will take you on doing just safety checks and servicing to start with.

either way i feel its a good trade to get in to as it dosent seem to be affected by the recession (not for me anyway) as if you have no heating in the middle of feb you would find the money.

On that note employers have any amount of people to choose from when recruiting, so make sure what ever path you choose will make you employable.

 

[DavidOffice]

Corgi was recently taken over by Gas Safe. RFTraining.co.uk offers a range of gas safe courses including a Fast Track course you can complete in just 6 weeks.

 

[ubuntu1]

You are very close to a proper training company that really does specialise in this area. Look up TC Training and give them a call.

 

[damatt]

I am a qualified Gas Engineer with over 45 years experience. I am just about to leave the industry because of all these so called plumbers who think they know how to work on a gas appliance. My apprenticeship was 5 years with British Gas and gas was all we did, we did not do bathrooms, kitchens or drains, that was a specialist job by a PLUMBER, now it looks like every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing Gas.

Working on Gas has a fatal ending if done incorrectly whereas there is very little chance of a fatality with plumbing. When did water last explode?

I do think that we have now arrived at a position when Gas is being treated as a secondary trade and so the requirements are being belittled. I have seen some of the results from these 6 week quicky courses and I would not let them touch my gas appliances. Would you trust a car mechanic with 6 weeks experience to work on your car.

Remember that your life is at risk if gas is not treated with respect. Finally, if you are doing this for the money, then forget it, there are many people out there who are looking for the same work as you, some will do work for very little, some who are doing the work are not even legal, ie they are not qualified, not registered and not even paying Tax.

So you have paid your £2000 to get your qualification, your £400 per year for PL insurance, your £175 for your Gas safe registration, £400 van insurance, £200 road tax, £200 for tyres, £400 for services, £1200 for buying a van, fuel at over £6 per gallon means that every year you need to find £5000 before you even pay yourself any wage.

This does not take into consideration those customers who fail to pay you because they say that you did not do the work correctly etc, dont forget your tax to pay every 6 months, national insurance, book keepers costs etc.

Before you take the plunge, do give it serious consideration. It will not be easy.

 

[gasinstaller sth mcr]

I am a qualified Gas Engineer with over 45 years experience. I am just about to leave the industry because of all these so called plumbers who think they know how to work on a gas appliance. My apprenticeship was 5 years with British Gas and gas was all we did, we did not do bathrooms, kitchens or drains, that was a specialist job by a PLUMBER, now it looks like every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing Gas.

Working on Gas has a fatal ending if done incorrectly whereas there is very little chance of a fatality with plumbing. When did water last explode?

I do think that we have now arrived at a position when Gas is being treated as a secondary trade and so the requirements are being belittled. I have seen some of the results from these 6 week quicky courses and I would not let them touch my gas appliances. Would you trust a car mechanic with 6 weeks experience to work on your car.

Remember that your life is at risk if gas is not treated with respect. Finally, if you are doing this for the money, then forget it, there are many people out there who are looking for the same work as you, some will do work for very little, some who are doing the work are not even legal, ie they are not qualified, not registered and not even paying Tax.

So you have paid your £2000 to get your qualification, your £400 per year for PL insurance, your £175 for your Gas safe registration, £400 van insurance, £200 road tax, £200 for tyres, £400 for services, £1200 for buying a van, fuel at over £6 per gallon means that every year you need to find £5000 before you even pay yourself any wage.

This does not take into consideration those customers who fail to pay you because they say that you did not do the work correctly etc, dont forget your tax to pay every 6 months, national insurance, book keepers costs etc.

Before you take the plunge, do give it serious consideration. It will not be easy.

wise words mate
and to put the tin hat on it the other day in the merchants a punter off the street. who was being shown a viessmann boiler 35kw at 740+vat with clock flue and a bundle of copper said to me .
so if i fit the boiler connect the rads will u connect the gas for me ...
i declined his kind offer of £100 to conect the gas and informed him that only a cowboy would work that way and if he thinks im registering his boiler for a free5years warenty and registering my install with gassafe and commisoning the apliance on anything ive not fitted .. told him NO.

1 question capita do the tv licence . every tv thats sold in the uk needs a name and adress . then why the feck do boilers not need the same via capita/gas safe . no gas apliance or parts there of should be sold to members of the public

 

[damatt]

I could not agree more, why should Joe Public just walk in off the street and buy something at trade price. I understood that the larger merchants should be asking to see gas safe card before selling any item which is gas carrying. I think it is the legal guy who is being hit most, not the cowboy, OK if the cowboy gets cought, then he is in a little trouble but also carries the risk of killing someone.

I have been told recently that if I do not get the analyser qualification, then I can not work on boilers and fires. I have 12 months left on my ticket and I will be 65. Four years ago I did my ticket for which I was safe to work for another 5 years, they are now telling me that because I dod not hold this new bit of paper, then I can not work. The course is £150 and the kit is £400 ish and the kit I doubt I will ever use as I am only doing part time. I do feel this is a restriction of trade. I can understand it if they say that you should have it from the renewal of your ticket, but not part way through it.

More RED tape - I would not go into this inductry again, to many cowboys and to much red tape against those who are legal.

 

[Root 66 Woodshop]

In answer to your question Damatt, the reason why people can now walk into places and get products at trade prices is mainly due to places like B&Q.

They've come along, having price drops say a couple of pounds more than the actual trade prices, leaving no room whatsoever for people in trades to actually be able to afford to do work, without loosing out some.

If all of the places like B&Q suddenly went bump, if all the wholesalers refused to sell to joe public, we would all benefit greatly, unfortunately it will probably never happen.

For example: B&Q currently sell a Yale Euro Cylinder for £29.99 (anti-snap, anti-pick etc etc) which isn't to bad a price, but in order for me to purchase that product from my suppliers I'd only be getting something along the lines of a 20% discount... then I'm paying VAT again... which brings it up to £28.79 Granted at the end of the year, I'll be claiming VAT back, but... really is it worth the hassle for the sake of just £1.20?

 

[damatt]

I agree it is places like B&Q etc. What they do not understand is that there is a danger involved in selling a gas appliance or gas carrying fitting to a member of the public whi will no doubt go and fit that appliance or fitting themselves when they know nothing about what they are doing.

This morning I received an email from the HSE reminding me that it was a requirement for me to register with them all appliance installtions I complete, which, though I can not see any reason for it, only for manufactuers to be able to know were the appliance is fitted and so contact the owner and offer them their own maintenance packages, so doing the local guy out of work.

For someone to go and buy a lock at B&Q at £1.20 more than you can buy it for at trade and fitting it themselves is not putting their lives at risk whereas fitting a gas appliance/fitting could be.

If. like TV retailers have to do, they advise the licencing authority of every TV they sell so they can check if they have a licence, then why not get the name and address of every gas appliance sold and the supplier tells the HSE and it can be cross referenced against the installers registration and if the sale is not registered within 3 months, then an inspector contacts the buyer to find out what happened. That could reduce the number of illegal installations and the number of cowboy installs as well.

Why not, to simple.

 

[gasinstaller sth mcr]

wise words u said it better than i could

 

[DDPlumbing]

I have been a "wet only" plumber for the past 10 years, I am about to bail out (no pun intended) due to illness/injury and go retail.

But recently I have had to work on only earning labour rate for jobs, there's just NO margin left in the materials for most things.

 

[CKG]

The domestic install market has been ruined. There is no money worth talking about to be made on materials and day/hourly rates are coming down whilst costs are going up.

Still some good money to be had in service and repair though.

I bailed from domestic into the commercial gas sector a few years ago. Big margins to be had on materials and spares, the money is still good and the barrier to entry is quite high as commercial kit scares the life out of your average domestic fitter.

 

[gasinstaller sth mcr]

have been toying with the idea of crosover quals for a while now .
but im not keen on the catering kitchen work . i dont know why that is

 

[CKG]

Catering is a pretty specialist area. A trade it its own right if you like - It covers a multitude of sins. Commercial electrics, controls, gas, plumbing, stainless fabrication and ventilation to name but a few.

Nothing a switched on gas engineer couldn't get to grips with inside a year or so though.

It's what my firm specialises in. I love it.

The only down side is getting paid quickly and you are limited time wise to when you can do jobs. We used to do JD Wethers kitchen maintenance and as they are busy all day long it was a right old stress out fixing kit in a flat out hot kitchen.

 

[Newmedia]

I am a qualified Gas Engineer with over 45 years experience. I am just about to leave the industry because of all these so called plumbers who think they know how to work on a gas appliance. My apprenticeship was 5 years with British Gas and gas was all we did, we did not do bathrooms, kitchens or drains, that was a specialist job by a PLUMBER, now it looks like every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing Gas.

Working on Gas has a fatal ending if done incorrectly whereas there is very little chance of a fatality with plumbing. When did water last explode?

I do think that we have now arrived at a position when Gas is being treated as a secondary trade and so the requirements are being belittled. I have seen some of the results from these 6 week quicky courses and I would not let them touch my gas appliances. Would you trust a car mechanic with 6 weeks experience to work on your car.

Remember that your life is at risk if gas is not treated with respect. Finally, if you are doing this for the money, then forget it, there are many people out there who are looking for the same work as you, some will do work for very little, some who are doing the work are not even legal, ie they are not qualified, not registered and not even paying Tax.

So you have paid your £2000 to get your qualification, your £400 per year for PL insurance, your £175 for your Gas safe registration, £400 van insurance, £200 road tax, £200 for tyres, £400 for services, £1200 for buying a van, fuel at over £6 per gallon means that every year you need to find £5000 before you even pay yourself any wage.

This does not take into consideration those customers who fail to pay you because they say that you did not do the work correctly etc, dont forget your tax to pay every 6 months, national insurance, book keepers costs etc.

Before you take the plunge, do give it serious consideration. It will not be easy.

Where you buying a decent van for £1200

And insurance for £400??? You must have good no claims!!!

 

[Root 66 Woodshop]

I agree it is places like B&Q etc. What they do not understand is that there is a danger involved in selling a gas appliance or gas carrying fitting to a member of the public whi will no doubt go and fit that appliance or fitting themselves when they know nothing about what they are doing.

For someone to go and buy a lock at B&Q at £1.20 more than you can buy it for at trade and fitting it themselves is not putting their lives at risk whereas fitting a gas appliance/fitting could be.

If. like TV retailers have to do, they advise the licencing authority of every TV they sell so they can check if they have a licence, then why not get the name and address of every gas appliance sold and the supplier tells the HSE and it can be cross referenced against the installers registration and if the sale is not registered within 3 months, then an inspector contacts the buyer to find out what happened. That could reduce the number of illegal installations and the number of cowboy installs as well.

Why not, to simple.

I totally agree, however with regards to security, if something isn't fitted correctly, or the product isn't to BS Standards then the insurance is void instantly... which would cost the customer more to rectify... We always use BS Standard products, even on internal locks mainly due to the product being better quality.

I don't know much about gas and it's installations, but wouldn't their need to be a gas check done before use... surely if it's not fitted correctly, or corners have been cut to install the product in the first instance this would show up during the gas check?

Being a member of the MLA (Master Locksmith's Association) gives my company the acreditation that everything we install meet's minimum requirements, giving the customer the piece of mind that their goods and property is covered by thier insurance, however recent scare-mongering within the news has made some people re-evaluate and go out panic buying, instead of getting advice from those that know, i.e. Locksmiths.

We actually have a product in my shop which I use as a display/educational selling point, some may call it scare-mongering but when I've actually shown people how this particular method works, they actually thank me and go away and consider the options rather than panic buying the wrong products.