Potential Tiler advice!! Nottingham area

[dboden]

Ok, this could be a long one, but any advice welcome!!.. I am 40yr old family bloke, a printer by trade and have been looking to get out for years!!
I did an evening course in wall and floor tiling a couple of years ago.. I have done half a dozen jobs for friends and family, which went well. It just takes me a while.
Anyway, I have been made redundant this week, with enough pay off to last about 6 months.. I would love nothing more than to give the tiling a go!.. But lack on the job knowledge experience and confidence.. In an ideal world I could do with getting on with someone to gain experience.. But I imagine this isn't going to happen..?????
I was thinking of putting a few small adverts in, try and start with a few small jobs, then build my confidence and experience..
Do you think this is doable in the current climate.. Is this how a lot of you started.. Is there enough work out there to make a few hundred quid a week???
Should I try and enrole on another tiling course to perhaps further my skills and gain confidence again!
Really really, any help or views appreciated.
Or even better if there are any tilers in the Nottingham area willing to share a bit of their gained knowledge for a free bit of help, and a bit of company! :smilewinkgrin:

 

[charlie1]

Hi mate, ask yourself this, do you enjoy tiling, would you enjoy it as a career? Yes a short course will help you break in to the trade and then you could learn enough to get you past within a couple of years IF you continually look to improve, potentially you could be doing full bathrooms or 60 m2 floors to a high standard by the time you are 43. You will need to have the hunger for it though... Good luck

 

[DGJ]

Why not do a couple of courses ( if you can spare some cash )?

maybe a kitchen fitting & Bathroom fitting?

Good luck with what ever you do

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

Well i cant see you standing a chance out there at the moment as there are plenty of good tilers looking for work ,and you need proper training before you are let loose on peoples homes, as you will bodge things if you are not taught properly ...... Don't do it get trained properly first .......

 

[bugs183]

The fella's raise some good points here DB.
Firstly you if you work for someone else, you'll start off labouring, bucket washing, knocking up adhesive, which is no bad thing as if you're with a good tiler you can see how he approaches everything, this method in my opinion is the best way to learn.

If you decide to go on your own, you'll be self employed,and this needs way more than a few hundred quid a week to support, paying for diesel, running a car/van, seeing customers, let alone paying for insurance, tools and materials.

I'd certainly go on a course if you are going to go on your own. There are so many things to to learn and also the methods of doing things quickly and correctly, that hopefully a decent course should show you.

The job is very very different than it used to be. It's not popping small tiles on kitchen and bathroom walls anymore. These days there are massive choices of tiles in all sizes, you need to know whether the substrate (wall or floor) are suitable to fix onto as this is becoming a problem with many jobs we encounter. Also we need to know more and more about plumbing and electrics as wet rooms and under floor heating are becomming very popular.

I'd go and work for someone else for a while and see what you think of doing it day to day if i were you, as the guys say, you need to want to do the job, if you're not happy doing the job then it will show with your work, and tiling has to look spot on as it doesn't improve with age.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Well i cant see you standing a chance out there at the moment as there are plenty of good tilers looking for work ,and you need proper training before you are let loose on peoples homes, as you will bodge things if you are not taught properly ...... Don't do it get trained properly first .......

Spot on there Dave, sad but very true.:yesnod:

 

[kilty55]

hi dboden,if you get enough training and constantly try to learn about the trade coupled with the skills and drive to run a tiling business it can work

would i advise starting out right now the way the economy is im afraid the answer is no

you could use this time to do some further training and stick around on here as much as possible to learn about it as well for the future