Thanks lads for your tips so far. I did my site induction last Wednesday. Got told that most site fatalities occur in your first week! It is a social housing site and it's 3 blocks of flats. There is no water or power in the buildings apart from the 110v lines. I have to wear a hard hat, gloves, eye protectors, hard boots, high viz jacket at all times (even when I'm in the kitchen or bathroom). I saw some of the tiling work and it's pretty good. I was amazed to see they were using 'white star'. So I'm all ready for my drive through London (06:00 to beat the congestion charge) . The ratio between English and Eastern Europeans is about 20/80. 80 being non English. For those of you that are interested, the pay is £14 a square metre. However, it's not the money, it's the experience I'm after. I now have a chance to tile every day and will hopefully improve my technique and speed. I did see another tiler on site, but could not ask him any questions because he did not speak English. I think it would be lonely working there, but I am still looking forward to it................That was written last week. I am now on day 4 of my new job. Day one was spent trying to get to grips with how everything works and where everything is. My kitchen was just an empty room (apart from loads of rubbish, timber, pipes, boxes etc). The kitchen units had not been fitted because it's a kitchen for disabled people. Therefore, the kitchen had to be tiled first, as the kitchen worktops, cupboards and hob are height adjustable. I did manage to tile 5sqm, but then had to take off 2sqm because the wall was (as the foreman put it) Pi55ed. I then spent another couple of hours shaving off plaster and then retiling with plenty of packing out. It's hard work lugging all my gear around every morning and evening, but I do find the work challenging and rewarding. I do a 9 hour day with about 8 minutes for lunch. I spend approx 3.5 hours travelling and I am absolutely knackered. I would say that all new tilers should do a stint on site. It's like an extension of my tiling course...only this time I get paid Wearing gloves, hat & goggles is not a pain. In fact the gloves are saving my hands from many cuts. My hat has saved me on numerous occasions too. I went to work today (Thursday), and discovered the tiling I did on Monday had been removed from the wall. I was told that I should not have used 3ml spacers. They should have been 2ml. However, in my defence, my site Manager did say it was ok to use 3ml !!! I have been 'snagging' for the past 2.5 days, and today I spent most of my time tiling around toilets. I'm certainly kept busy, and I'm getting plenty of exercise walking up/down flights of stairs many times a day. So there you have it.........a small insight into site work. Cheers Sean
