qualified tilers

[Tony73]

I could teach you Deano :lol::lol:

 

[DHTiling]

See now Dean can Assess , so be a good chap and give us lesser qauls an NVQ :lol:

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

I think the value of the paper work has changed so much, you can't compare a piece of paper awarded for a 4/5 day course or a 2/3/4 week course, to a piece of paper that took 5/6 sometimes 7 years to achieve + in my case one day per week day release to a real building college for five years, as well as the five years serving my time with real master tilers.

I am not putting the short course guys down, I have said many times, it is always down to the individual. But if I had to choose between a time served guy or a course guy to be a part of my gang, knowing that my reputation/business was on the line, I would have to choose the time served tiler every time. If for no other reason other than that the time served experienced guy has probably forgotten more about tiling than some of these tutors will ever learn.

I hope I don't offend to many people with my comments, that is not my intention, over the years I have met/worked with thousands of tilers in the UK and all over the world. I have met the talkers, and the real deals. I find the real talented tilers don't talk a good job, they just quietly get on with it and do it. Let us hope this trade doesn't go the way of so many others like dry stone wall men/thatchers etc. Sorry for the mini rant.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

for a period of 15 years until say 2009 , I had a steady stream of tilers working for me along side my core of employees.
most of these were australians and some stayed 3 months, others came/ went and came back and others stayed for a longer period .
the reason I tended to employ aussies was twofold.
Firstly i had worked and travelled in their country and they always had good attitude to work.
they worked hard,played hard and never let you down and then went off traveling for a bit and i would always have work for them to come back to if given decent notice. they only needed hand tools as i had all the other kit that they would not want to pay out for when travelling.
it worked perfectly for both parties.
the other reason though was that i knew that they had all done the aussie tiling apprenticeship which was a lot of hours .
that ticket was the gold ticket and i didnt consider anyone else without one.
this did not make them good tilers necessarily but they had the basics and i found that i could get any tiler with that qualification and the right attitude to adapt to limestone fixing .
with a couple of exceptions , the rest found the work really interesting as different to home and in fact i am still in contact with many and they find that they are years ahead of the game in aussie when limestone started to come in aussie from china.
so their certificate was important to me as it sorted a lot of the crud out on gum tree in those days .
I did not entertain an eastern european tiler .
You may ask why i did not go for english tilers .
Well the answer is partly because i put one of my employees through the citb course in vauxhall school of building and i think it was the last one they ran and i was appalled by the course.
My employee could not even do a mix when asked by one of my aussies because labourers at the college did it for them!!
In fairness this might have been a time when adhesives were taking over from sand/cement bedding and i am sure that the old school boys had a far better tiling education and THAT QUALIFICATION REALLY MEANT SOMETHING
I would take a safe bet that the aussies set their tiling courses around those in the uk before and they really work.
as an example a qualified aussie tiler ten years ago could lay a screed to falls in a bathroom which was the norm in aussie that he could then tile on to successfully .
the aussies for the most part dont even bother coming here to earn their money for travelling as there is so much competition from eastern europe.
they do their saving in oz now.
i now find myself not employing many extra tilers over and above my employees because of the climate but i will say that i have had some exceptional stone fixers from eastern europe.
I put ads out on gumtree again and had to sift through countless applicants and this was much more difficult as there was a language problem and no recognised qualification.
this did mean trying out more people but i have found some quite extraordinary natural talent that has required longer to train and adapt but the results and long term are the same and these people become employees and stay rather going home much quicker.
in short i think that if qualifications are very important but i am afraid to say that i personally think that they may too easy to achive today just like our school exams and it is hard as an employer to sort out out the good from the norm pass.

Jonny I was typing while you posted, but I think we both said the same thing. I might be wrong.

 

[John Benton]

And I........ I can do mitred corners :hurray: :lol:

You could get a job at Costas :lol: Barrista Barrista

 

[jonnyc]

I think the value of the paper work has changed so much, you can't compare a piece of paper awarded for a 4/5 day course or a 2/3/4 week course, to a piece of paper that took 5/6 sometimes 7 years to achieve + in my case one day per week day release to a real building college for five years, as well as the five years serving my time with real master tilers.

I am not putting the short course guys down, I have said many times, it is always down to the individual. But if I had to choose between a time served guy or a course guy to be a part of my gang, knowing that my reputation/business was on the line, I would have to choose the time served tiler every time. If for no other reason other than that the time served experienced guy has probably forgotten more about tiling than some of these tutors will ever learn.

I hope I don't offend to many people with my comments, that is not my intention, over the years I have met/worked with thousands of tilers in the UK and all over the world. I have met the talkers, and the real deals. I find the real talented tilers don't talk a good job, they just quietly get on with it and do it. Let us hope this trade doesn't go the way of so many others like dry stone wall men/thatchers etc. Sorry for the mini rant.

I think we are saying the same thing here Phil
I used the Aussie tile apprentiship as an example as I am sure that their format was copied from ours and it really meant something to me . This was my benchmark .
of course I should say as I have always said that I am self taught so one could argue, what do I know anyway.
but i have done ok and will stick my neck out and state that I learnt more from my Aussie employee than any information coming back from Citb Course. .
i dont want to offend people who have taken the time to get the latest tiling qualifications as they have made a big effort but it would seems that a pass is almost assured by good attendance .this does not just apply to tiling .

 

[jonnyc]

Ok Phil . We have posted and crossed , but this have proved that we are thinking alike.
I feel strange questioning qualifications that can be procured seemingly quite easily when I have none myself .you can quite rightly question this , I cannot.

 

[Spud]

what modules would you include for a worth while tiling qualification
1. setting out
2. substrate prepation including screeding , rendering and laytexing
3 .wall tiling including window reveals .soffits and cills
4.floor tiling
5.water control tiling including setting gulley channels and laying to falls
6. material estimating
7 product knowledge and manufacturing of materials including adhesives and how tiles are manufactured
8. tiling mosaic to wall and floor surfaces including paper faced work ,pre grouting and mortar bed fixing
9. setting tiles on to mortar beds on walls and floor
10 . setting out and tiling steps and risers
11. considerations of public area tiling including slip resistance and food prepartion
12. swimming pool tiling and corrosion resistance tiling
13 cleaning and restoration
14. geometric tiling ,setting out and installing
15 .health and safety
can any one add any to this list ?

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Ok Phil . We have posted and crossed , but this have proved that we are thinking alike.
I feel strange questioning qualifications that can be procured seemingly quite easily when I have none myself .you can quite rightly question this , I cannot.

I have had the pleasure of speaking to you Jonny and seeing your work, you are the real deal. I have also met and spoken to a lot of of other members and have a lot of respect for them, the fact that someone would give up their spare time to contribute to this forum shows a passion for this trade.

Last night I got a call from a guy I have never met, he contacted me through my post about Manchester college of building, it turns out he was there before me, did his C&G HNC etc. Seconds into the call I knew this guy was a pro tiler, we chatted about old times, old tilers, old jobs, old tiling legends. He was the real deal too, there are some things you can't bluff/blagg your way through.

 

[Aston]

I think if you are good at what you do and you set your standards as high as you can, then you will always be in demand regardless of your qualifications or background.

 

[jonnyc]

I have had the pleasure of speaking to you Jonny and seeing your work, you are the real deal. I have also met and spoken to a lot of of other members and have a lot of respect for them, the fact that someone would give up their spare time to contribute to this forum shows a passion for this trade.

Last night I got a call from a guy I have never met, he contacted me through my post about Manchester college of building, it turns out he was there before me, did his C&G HNC etc. Seconds into the call I knew this guy was a pro tiler, we chatted about old times, old tilers, old jobs, old tiling legends. He was the real deal too, there are some things you can't bluff/blagg your way through.

phil I am sure that call would have lifted your spirits in these hard times for us all. I always like to be reminded about old jobs /times etcc as essentiailly they are a large part of our life.
how is it that the old jobs we did,always seem to be so much more exciting than what we do currently!

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

what modules would you include for a worth while tiling qualification
1. setting out
2. substrate prepation including screeding , rendering and laytexing
3 .wall tiling including window reveals .soffits and cills
4.floor tiling
5.water control tiling including setting gulley channels and laying to falls
6. material estimating
7 product knowledge and manufacturing of materials including adhesives and how tiles are manufactured
8. tiling mosaic to wall and floor surfaces including paper faced work ,pre grouting and mortar bed fixing
9. setting tiles on to mortar beds on walls and floor
10 . setting out and tiling steps and risers
11. considerations of public area tiling including slip resistance and food prepartion
12. swimming pool tiling and corrosion resistance tiling
13 cleaning and restoration
14. geometric tiling ,setting out and installing
15 .health and safety
can any one add any to this list ?

Good post Gary, reading and understanding drawings, setting out different arches, ie working out voussoirs sizes?

 

[charlie1]

One thing i would like to know is when working on larger scales, how do you assemble a team / squad of tilers and delicate there duties. Also how you would go about setting out bays and which order to do first.

 

[Peter]

Got my Level 2 NVQ through tech. Stayed on to do my level 3 but the company I was with were doing work abroad most weeks so missed more than I was going to. Wish I had finished it though.

Don't believe it has any bearing on how good a tiler you are, and if you seen some of the half wits in my tech class that passed it then you'd understand why. :lol:

 

[The D]

what modules would you include for a worth while tiling qualification
1. setting out
2. substrate prepation including screeding , rendering and laytexing
3 .wall tiling including window reveals .soffits and cills
4.floor tiling
5.water control tiling including setting gulley channels and laying to falls
6. material estimating
7 product knowledge and manufacturing of materials including adhesives and how tiles are manufactured
8. tiling mosaic to wall and floor surfaces including paper faced work ,pre grouting and mortar bed fixing
9. setting tiles on to mortar beds on walls and floor
10 . setting out and tiling steps and risers
11. considerations of public area tiling including slip resistance and food prepartion
12. swimming pool tiling and corrosion resistance tiling
13 cleaning and restoration
14. geometric tiling ,setting out and installing
15 .health and safety
can any one add any to this list ?

There is more to this that meets the eye take Jonnyc or Dave How if they want your qualification how do you propose they prove there competence in each element of each unit ??

 

[charlie1]

Not sure if I've mentioned this earlier in thread but tiler i have worked with on a few occasions has an attitude of his work is acceptable and good enough, he wonders why i stress over lippage of half a mm, he would just leave that and say why worry, his attitude can infuriate me at times!! When we work together, he will discuss anything but work where i am the opposite, when he is tiling he is just switched off on auto pilot! He is fully qualified in tiling, brick laying and plastering and very experienced. Maybe as i have said earlier, when qualified you simply assume you are good enough because the piece of paper said so? Not saying everyone is like that but its an interesting point! One reason i got in to tiling is because i know what outstanding tiling looks like, i have also saw a severe lack of it in this country in comparison to others like Germany!

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

One thing i would like to know is when working on larger scales, how do you assemble a team / squad of tilers and delicate there duties. Also how you would go about setting out bays and which order to do first.

Mark that is a tough one to explain with just words, Ed and I had this conversation last week. I ran a team of tilers for years and the faces changed on a weekly basis, only the best of the best would last on those jobs, the money was good but the work was hard.

I had a system on big floors where I legged out the floor so each tiler did not need to think about squares, tapes, or anything else, they just tiled for 12 hours.

Without drawing I can only try to explain, my screeders would receive 25ton of readymix 4:1 sand and cement each morning at 6.30am my team arrived at 8.00am by which time we would have 80/90m2 of screed laid. As the rest of the team sorted out water, tiles, etc I would start to form the 3linm bays, using pre-formed metal staffs with the tile joints sawed in to them.

As I got the first 3mlin bay ready the first tiler would jump in with his walking boards and start fixing, when I had the second bay set up the next guy started, when I had finished legging out I would jump in the last bay. We used to average 150/200m2 per day, depending on the job. Good days, hard work, good money.

 

[DHTiling]

There is more to this that meets the eye take Jonnyc or Dave How if they want your qualification how do you propose they prove there competence in each element of each unit ??

Full on practicle tests .. but to tell the truth , a piece of paper means diddly to me unless one day the trade is fully licensed and i then will make sure i am papered to the hilt with what is required... but i will probs be in a coffin before that happens in this trade... till then the courses will keep churning them out.

 

[gamma38]

Some good reading on this thread. Personally i'm a C&G time served pipefitter welder (industrial plumber if anyone is not sure). 5 years at St Albans and for me those pieces of paper don't really mean that much and never really did. Don't get me wrong i have always had work so i guess they meant something at the time, but job wise i never really enjoyed doing it, which is when i started getting into tiling. To start with i was one of those just stick em up guys. Now some 16 odd years later and working with some good tilers over the years i have learnt so much, and continue to do so. Tiling is more than just a job nowadays, i enjoy what i do which is reflected in my work and my work ethic i think. I think tiling as a trade has to be a little more than a piece of paper as it is a job that almost demands a certain amount of pride. Not taking anything away from any of you guys here that have the qualifications as there is no downside to a piece of paper.

 

[charlie1]

Mark that is a tough one to explain with just words, Ed and I had this conversation last week. I ran a team of tilers for years and the faces changed on a weekly basis, only the best of the best would last on those jobs, the money was good but the work was hard.

I had a system on big floors where I legged out the floor so each tiler did not need to think about squares, tapes, or anything else, they just tiled for 12 hours.

Without drawing I can only try to explain, my screeders would receive 25ton of readymix 4:1 sand and cement each morning at 6.30am my team arrived at 8.00am by which time we would have 80/90m2 of screed laid. As the rest of the team sorted out water, tiles, etc I would start to form the 3linm bays, using pre-formed metal staffs with the tile joints sawed in to them.

As I got the first 3mlin bay ready the first tiler would jump in with his walking boards and start fixing, when I had the second bay set up the next guy started, when I had finished legging out I would jump in the last bay. We used to average 150/200m2 per day, depending on the job. Good days, hard work, good money.

nice one Phil! ( i don't want to hijack this thread) but, i understand your methods using sand cement fixing but with current methods, on an uneven substrate, how could you ensure that each tiler in each bay is following the same plane or height? A slightly different angle on trowling could have a mil or 2 difference in bed thickness! ... Fascinating Post Phil!!

 

[The D]

Full on practicle tests .. but to tell the truth , a piece of paper means diddly to me unless one day the trade is fully licensed and i then will make sure i am papered to the hilt with what is required... but i will probs be in a coffin before that happens in this trade... till then the courses will keep churning them out.

Ok now we are talking first we need the elements that makeup each unit. Can some one get on with writing them up Tanks. Then we will need some assessors and some guidelines to measure against
Take in to consideration the amount of materials that will be needed and then removed and disposed of
Then think about the time it will take to physically complete each and every unit. (This will all have to be simulated evidence as a lot of it is not day to day tiling for most tilers.) This qualification will be the best qual you can get if you have 2 years spare and about £6000.00

 

[jonnyc]

Mark that is a tough one to explain with just words, Ed and I had this conversation last week. I ran a team of tilers for years and the faces changed on a weekly basis, only the best of the best would last on those jobs, the money was good but the work was hard.

I had a system on big floors where I legged out the floor so each tiler did not need to think about squares, tapes, or anything else, they just tiled for 12 hours.

Without drawing I can only try to explain, my screeders would receive 25ton of readymix 4:1 sand and cement each morning at 6.30am my team arrived at 8.00am by which time we would have 80/90m2 of screed laid. As the rest of the team sorted out water, tiles, etc I would start to form the 3linm bays, using pre-formed metal staffs with the tile joints sawed in to them.

As I got the first 3mlin bay ready the first tiler would jump in with his walking boards and start fixing, when I had the second bay set up the next guy started, when I had finished legging out I would jump in the last bay. We used to average 150/200m2 per day, depending on the job. Good days, hard work, good money.[/QUOT

Phil this is a great insight of what the tiling profession was all about.
it would seem to me that at some point this changed with the introduction of tile adhesive that must have evolved from having screeds to level outbsubfloors that only needed a thin bed material.
this would automatically dilute the skill of the tiler hence what we have today

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

nice one Phil! ( i don't want to hijack this thread) but, i understand your methods using sand cement fixing but with current methods, on an uneven substrate, how could you ensure that each tiler in each bay is following the same plane or height? A slightly different angle on trowling could have a mil or 2 difference in bed thickness! ... Fascinating Post Phil!!

Mark this is another topic Ed and I talked about, I have a fool-proof way of using SLC, that I would make sure was done before any tiling commenced. And I always make sure everyone trowels with the same notch, in the same way.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Mark that is a tough one to explain with just words, Ed and I had this conversation last week. I ran a team of tilers for years and the faces changed on a weekly basis, only the best of the best would last on those jobs, the money was good but the work was hard.

I had a system on big floors where I legged out the floor so each tiler did not need to think about squares, tapes, or anything else, they just tiled for 12 hours.

Without drawing I can only try to explain, my screeders would receive 25ton of readymix 4:1 sand and cement each morning at 6.30am my team arrived at 8.00am by which time we would have 80/90m2 of screed laid. As the rest of the team sorted out water, tiles, etc I would start to form the 3linm bays, using pre-formed metal staffs with the tile joints sawed in to them.

As I got the first 3mlin bay ready the first tiler would jump in with his walking boards and start fixing, when I had the second bay set up the next guy started, when I had finished legging out I would jump in the last bay. We used to average 150/200m2 per day, depending on the job. Good days, hard work, good money.[/QUOT

Phil this is a great insight of what the tiling profession was all about.
it would seem to me that at some point this changed with the introduction of tile adhesive that must have evolved from having screeds to level outbsubfloors that only needed a thin bed material.
this would automatically dilute the skill of the tiler hence what we have today

Sorry Jonny,I missed your post, just found it, but these sand and cement jobs were not that long ago, but as I said to Mark if the floor is prepared for adhesive fixing, then the legging out method still works.

 

[charlie1]

Sorry Jonny,I missed your post, just found it, but these sand and cement jobs were not that long ago, but as I said to Mark if the floor is prepared for adhesive fixing, then the legging out method still works.

sounds like you had a lot of control over a lot of very good fixers who where prepared to do as you asked rather than a bunch of egotistical know it alls....good team!! I hate to blatantly ask phil but i will call one day and hopefully you can explain in more detail your fool proof self levelling method!!!