On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 21:01:20 +0000, (Roger Hayter)
wrote:

Willy die m wrote:

Working on gas boilers and gas appliances is not DIY... Taking off the case to
an appliance means you have to undertake statutory checks to ensure the
appliance works correctly and safely. I have been in the industry for forty
three years and have seen some absolutely leathial fiddling by the don't want
to pay for it idiots. Its not funny when you turn up with the police to find
someone dead. Leave all gas work to fully professionals

The essential qualification is competence.

Wasn't that the original requirement for working on (your own
especially / specifically) gas / electric, you just had to be a
'competent person'?

Amateurs do not have a
monopoly on incompetence or carelessness.

Quite. ;-)

When I was IT training there was talk of some delegates getting their
certificates but with little in the way of real world experience being
called 'Paper Technicians / engineers'.

Now of course that's a Catch22 as many couldn't get that experience
without qualifications so they had to start somewhere, especially if
moving across from a different field ... and I dealt with secretaries,
managers, general tradesmen and even a girl who was previously running
the tea trolley. ;-)

ITRW, some (often bigger) employers would still often take on a 'Paper
Technician' because they could often get them cheap(er) and could
train them up to actually do the work their way.

A mate who has run his own garage for over 40 years normally looks
after our cars that I can't (time, space, difficulty, equipment etc)
and he recently had to farm out a clutch job on our Meriva because
(without the heavy lifting gear), it was a multi-man job and he is but
one.

I rarely have any issues with his work (over 30+ years now) but the
clutch job came back with a spanner left under the bonnet, some cable
ties just laying around and a lose engine steady. I wasn't rushing
them or anything so maybe they all assumed the other people were doing
the finishing up (possibly an advantage of working on your own as you
have to double check everything and the buck stops with you)?

Cheers, T i m