Are any of the ninja's electricians?

[dubluke]

Basically, having jumped into another sales job without really thinking it through properly (and not really enjoying it very much), I'm thinking about following something I've been interested in for ages, learning a trade and changing paths a bit - quite interested in becoming an electrician.

I've been looking at various courses and am thinking about one of the NVQ qualifications in it. What I was wondering is if any ninja's out there are electricians and did any of these courses? Which one is the most suitable one for someone with no experience in the industry who needs to learn from scratch? And going on from the initial ones what kind of courses do you need to go down to be able to start doing wiring and testing etc. for houses and new buildings?

Also it would be good to hear about any other routes that you can go down to get qualified whilst on the job, if that's possible.

Cheers in advance!

[minusworld]

did it in highschool for a while. honnestly can't help you with the courses cause i'm from belgium and degrees and courses are pretty much all named diffrently.

Basicly if you're planning on doing houses ( instead of industrial ) i would suggest that after finishing the normal course i would take a course specialising in domotics and stuff like that. Might wan't to look in to courses for solar panels and alternative energy and stuff aswel.

As far as learning the trade goes it pretty much all comes down to your technical insight ( am i saying this right? ) , If youre pretty handy you'll easly master it pretty fast.
Watch out for the math tough , making calculations is a big part of an electrician's job aswel.
The schematic side of things is probably gonna be the least fun thing about the course in the beginning , but after a few weeks you'll get it and it won't be a big deal anymore.

It's a nice trade to learn , pays good , work isn't all that hard .

I'd say go for it ! you won't regret it

[kidshuffle]

my stepdad is a master electrician here, so i did a shit ton of work with him when i lived at home.

from my experience, you can get hired on anywhere as an apprentice, then after you get enough hours you go to school to become a journeyman...then so on an so forth for the masters.

[Pedro Sánchez]

My old man was an Electrician, you could get a City and Guilds 17th Edition paid for if you were signing on a few years ago, which is required by law for domestic wiring but if you need to get the basics first, then the NVQ route is the way to go, you can progress until you have the lot and onsite training is provided.

[clifford_-]

dont work on new builds.

go to nescott college or somewhere like that. nvq is probably ideal, although id get a bit of apprentice experience before going to college, just to make sure its right for you.

kind of wish i was a sparky sometimes, othertimes, not so much. it can be fucking FRUSTRATING, especially fault finding etc.

wiring houses is a piece of piss once youve done it a few time, having that bit of paper that means you can sign it off is the hard part. hope your good with maths!!

[clifford_-]

also with electrics, regs change ALL the time, so going back to college more often than not is a neccesity to keep up to date with testing/signing off etc....

but obvs you dont /have/ to do that, you can rewire a house a connect it up, without any qualifications at all, you need to be qualified to sign it off though, or get someone else to do it once youve finished.

[lloydy]

Industrial machine electrics is where the moneys at,household electricians are 10 a penny in the uk.I work on maintenance engineering at a company in the uk,me and my mate handle all mechanical and electrical faults.If we get an electrical job we can't handle we bring in a company who deal with industrial electronics be it single or 3 phase and i can tell you for a fact they earn a fucking wedge.
£90 callout fee and then £45 an hour on top of that.
Also emergency callout is £65 an hour.They are worth every penny to be honest because of their understanding of components and the like.Honestly your 17th edition is where its at,a lot of top company's will take you on with that qualification,since i have been doing the job and learned what i have i have been offered 2 jobs with a lot more earning potential but as long as i get my 17th.
I earn really good money now so fuck knows what they are willing to pay.
Decent industrial machinery electricians are not easy to come by,machines go down they are losing money so company's will pay what they have to to bring people in.

[lloydy]

I called in 3 company's when i had a big big problem with an electrical fault that knocked out the whole building including the generator outside.
15 grand later i was running and the company's only done a few days work so go figure.

[lloydy]

Just a quick one aswell,plc programming also is top money.We use some italian guy who is really really clued up.1 days work 700 euros and we had to pay flights hotel and take the fucker to a posh italian restaurant.
Plc and inverta courses are not expensive either but you need some form of electrical understanding.Shit if you can get that under your belt you have potential of traveling the world and earning huge money.
We had trouble with a plc on one of our machines a few months back,we rung the company who build the plc's and they said just to get an engineer to travel the 20 miles to our work was £700 then £125 an hour.

[clifford_-]

well if your talking commercial rather than domestic....


go for it! itd take ages to get to that level though, lukes no spring chicken! haha

[kay]

Just a quick one aswell,plc programming also is top money.We use some italian guy who is really really clued up.1 days work 700 euros and we had to pay flights hotel and take the fucker to a posh italian restaurant.
Plc and inverta courses are not expensive either but you need some form of electrical understanding.Shit if you can get that under your belt you have potential of traveling the world and earning huge money.
We had trouble with a plc on one of our machines a few months back,we rung the company who build the plc's and they said just to get an engineer to travel the 20 miles to our work was £700 then £125 an hour.

PLC programming's a whole different ballgame though compared to a commercial sparky. A good PLC programmer's always gonna be in good demand as you say. Normally, you'd be attached to a specific PLC vendor as there are slight differences between them from what I gather. I thought most of them were electrical engineers?

[dubluke]

Oi Cliff I'm younger than you!!

Seriously though safe for the advice guys, been talking to a few people on the phone at work about it as well as I'm working with a lot of electrical technicians for wind turbines etc. at the moment and they're all bigging up getting 17th edition somewhere down the line as a really good idea too.

I think I've found a place where I can do evening courses which is sweet as it means I can keep earning at the same time, also my brothers mate's dad is a sparky and he says I can probably spend a few days shadowing him etc. to get a feel for what it'd be like day in day out. Would like to specialise in something further down the line like you guys suggest but don't want to jump the gun just yet!

Only slight concern is the maths side, really not a strong point of mine - need to have a good think about that

[kay]

I don't think you'll need that much complicated maths for basic sparky training? You can pick up the rest along the way.

[clifford_-]

I don't think you'll need that much complicated maths for basic sparky training? You can pick up the rest along the way.

depends what you call complicated maths! i dont know my algorythms from my arsehole, hence why i never bothered with the sparky thing and decided to be "multi-trade" instead.

i can wire in a cooker, could probably wire a whole house if someone did the rcb/board for me, but fuck even thinking about 3 phase and commercial/industrial shit, that next level stuff from your run of the mill sparks!


one thing i will say, is fucking tidy up after yourself. sparks are stnuc for leaving bits of earth sleeve and cable clips lying about. unts. absoulte unts!

[kay]

I don't think you'll need that much complicated maths for basic sparky training? You can pick up the rest along the way.

depends what you call complicated maths! i dont know my algorythms from my arsehole, hence why i never bothered with the sparky thing and decided to be "multi-trade" instead.

i can wire in a cooker, could probably wire a whole house if someone did the rcb/board for me, but fuck even thinking about 3 phase and commercial/industrial shit, that next level stuff from your run of the mill sparks!


one thing i will say, is fucking tidy up after yourself. sparks are stnuc for leaving bits of earth sleeve and cable clips lying about. unts. absoulte unts!

Yeah they do tend to leave tiny bits of crap all over the place.

Algorithms are just step-by-step instructions of how to go about doing something, they don't need maths. If you can learn how to produce (now that's fucking intimidating and complicated), I'm sure that you can learn how to be a basic sparky. Turn the basics into routine, then just build up from there until you can handle the industrial stuff. The principles aren't really going to be all that different, just a bit more complex.

[clifford_-]

and a bit more intense consequences should you make a mistake!

fuck making a mistake with electrics! or boilers come to think of it. some geezer just went down for 3 years cos he fitted a boiler and wernt corgi reg'd.

[AxeD]

Yes, I'm a ninja electrician.

[minusworld]

Well since we've starded on the topic of industrial aswell , go for industrial , lot's of variation in your work . You gotta learn housing and stuff first tough.
If you passed math in highschool you'll probably have no problem with the math , no stress


My final advice is to NEVER work on something unofficialy , if something goes wrong ( it doesn't even have to be your fault ) you can't fall back on insurance.

PS : always follow safety rules , sometimes they might seem ridicoulus in the beginning , but you'll soon learn that they aren't ( well most of them )

[DRTY]

learning a trade is a good move

[kay]

I still think plumbing's where it's at.