A place at University does not make you a good plumber in London
Is it really so important if you can’t go to University?
As a company employing over 100 staff in London we are concerned that so much fear is being instilled into students who fail to get a university place.
Richard Clarke the company chairman told the meeting of gas engineers that 2010/11 would be about delivering a better customer service
We are a plumbing and property maintenance business and each year we serve some 30,000 London homeowners with a service that is very rarely delivered by university graduates.
London Plumbers can be top earners
Our engineers are all carefully selected as the best in the business but mostly earn at least 150% of the national average and some of those can earn well in excess of that.
Being a top earner in any profession or industry is never easy and although a good degree at a top university might be the entry to get an interview for a job into some very high earning professions getting an interview doesn’t guarantee success.
Many graduates are finding that getting into the job market is now even harder than getting into university
There are however so many other opportunities for enthusiastic young people who want to work hard, don’t have a degree but want to think for themselves.
The media give false information to students
I believe that both the media and the politicians have joined together to give a completely false impression to young people on the merit of a degree in the world of work and employment.
It’s no good saying that all degrees are of equal merit even if the student has had to pay similar course fees and similar accommodation fees whilst at university and finishes with the same big debt.
The trades may not pay footballers wages but what does? There will always be a demand for plumbers, gas fitters, drainage engineers and electricians, carpenters, plasterers and painters & decorators.
Such businesses actually contribute over £35 billion annually to the UK economy and have an estimated turnover of £215 billion per year so the country does need you even more than the footballers
If you learn the skills and have the right attitude to the work you will always be in demand and if you choose you can easily be your own boss and then you too could become a millionaire without ever going anywhere near a university.
Install Bathrooms with a Wow! not a How?
Wonderful Modern Bathroom Designs
You may have noticed that nearly all the modern bathroom designs manage without any pipes. Water just appears when you turn on a most wonderfully sculptured tap and disappears just as easily through a small hole in the sink or floor.
Of course this is the illusion that we want to create and in lots of wonderful bathrooms and wet rooms we can do just that but here is a warning.
Just like any illusion it is what is happening out of sight that makes the illusion work. In your bathroom illusion there is a network of pipes, pumps, valves and levers making it all happen out of sight. Even more importantly those pipes all are there to carry water which can be very destructive to your property if it leaks out.
1st Action Engineers attend 30,000 plumbing breakdowns every year
In London alone we at 1st Action receive over 30,000 calls a year to provide a plumber to sort out bursts and leaking plumbing that is not working properly.
With design and beautiful tile or marble surfaces as the primary objective some bathroom designers get carried away and forget the complexity of the plumbing, behind the design. All those electric pumps driving the power showers, concealed pipe-work and hidden toilet cisterns can breakdown.
Plumbing problems can be repaired pumps replaced and drains unblocked but our engineers do need to be able to get to the fault and unfortunately we find that creators of many beautiful bathrooms have forgotten to include in their design the access panels to get at these leaks or pumps. The other things that we see being overlooked are isolation valves. These are small valves installed into the pipework carrying the water just before the shower, bath, sink or toilet so that it can easily turned off to carry out work on the unit.
It is now possible to build fantastic bathrooms or wet rooms and create almost any style that you would like and designer style bathroom showrooms can show you the most fantastic and wonderful feature baths, sinks and sanitary ware.
A Problem for your plumber
If you are having a new bathroom installed or even having new tiles please make sure that in the event of a problem your plumber can get at the problem without having to break up the bathroom. It is very difficult to replace original tiling. It never seems to be quite the same and in some cases it can never be the same if you used some special one off materials.