Plumbers / gas engineer feedback please

Ed30reflex

Hi all, 

I would like to get feedback from experienced plumbers and gas engineers. 

I am 24 and have always worked office roles (estate agents) and did enjoy it, smart suited up, getting a little buzz when the deal goes through, however putting 5 years into it and not being able to go my own way and make my own business out of it really daunted me. I really like the idea of owning my own company and being my own boss and have seen this through people I have known off (creating there own company once a fair bit of experience etc) 

I left my current work place in January and have booked my self into a plumbing course starting from the ground up in the meantime. 

I wanna know a few things such as, do you guys regret doing this long term and think to yourself I should have done something else when I was younger. 

Is the all the hard work learning from the bottom rewarding enough. 

More importantly I just want your own feedback, anything you could let me no as you have worked in the trade for a long time and me learning from the bottom not knowing anything long term wise. 

Thank you!

NSG666

In order to be able to give useful comments it would be useful to know why you picked plumbing as your chosen route to becoming self employed / running your own business. What course are you doing and how are you finding it. What is your plan after you have completed your course. How are you going to gain experience?

tacpot12

I'll start by saying that I am not a plumber or heating engineer, but I use plumbers and heating engineers a good deal as a result of being a landlord. 

My thoughts are that while it is relatively easy to get trade training, it seems much less easy to get the business training you need to run a successful plumbing business. You need marketing and organisatinal skills - your time as an estate agent will give you a little bit of a head start, but it's a steep learning curve. You also need customer service skills for when things go wrong, and you need to tough on customers who haven't paid you.

Cash is king in a small business, and it can be easy to spend cash on the wrong things. The biggest success factor I've seen (with all sorts of tradespeople) is having an office with a good manager - someone who can pay biils and chase customers, and generally make sure that you are in the right place at the right time! This might sound like they will be your boss, but as the owner of the business you will be running the business plan; they will be working for you to make the plan a reality.   Also having a physical office will reassure customers that you are not a fly-by  night operator.

The other big success factor is dedicating yourself to quality. It can be hard to make jobs pay and do high quality work, but you need to work to the standards you are taught in your trade training - assuming you have good trainers. If your trainer wouldn't accept it, you shouldn't, even if it costs you money to get it right. It won't take long before mistakes are few and far between. 

 

Takeaway_Addict

tacpot12 said:

The other big success factor is dedicating yourself to quality. It can be hard to make jobs pay and do high quality work, but you need to work to the standards you are taught in your trade training - assuming you have good trainers. If your trainer wouldn't accept it, you shouldn't, even if it costs you money to get it right. It won't take long before mistakes are few and far between. 

 

This bit in particular. Do it right do it once. I deal with trades quite a bit and I'll accept the odd issue but if I'm calling you back repeatedly to correct jobs then I won't be calling you at all.

ACG

Are you sure it is the right decision? With plans to phase out gas boilers over the next 15-20 years, your customer base is probably going to start reducing in the next years. Although I suppose there will also be people in the industry retiring, but I am not sure it is a 30-40 year career, that being said I am not sure what is now a days. 

Anyway, self employed like anything has its pros and cons:
Pros:
You have more freedom (although this is not a good thing when you start out as although you have freedom, you have less income),
You can choose your customers (although that is more once you are established),
You may well earn more.

Cons:
You will find people calling you at all hours (I once had a call at 10pm on a friday nights, I was leathered and in a bar). I took out a new phone number for work after that.
You will probably earn less in the early years. 
You have to deal with things like insurance, the tax man, accounts etc. You find a lot of your time is taken up with none income earning things, ie rather than being on a job you are doing marketing, dealing with bills etc. 
Switching off at the end of the day I still find difficult but I have got better since my daughter was born. 

oh_really

ACG said:

I am not sure it is a 30-40 year career, that being said I am not sure what is now a days. 

Undertaker.

tacpot12

Once you are in the industry and making money, I would recommend that you start learning about airconditioning systems, so that you can install Air Source Heat Pumps. There are lots of skills and tools that are transferable between boiler-based heating systems and heat-pump systems. 

Solar heating is also a good area to extend into.