qualified tilers

[Andy Allen]

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

your over qualified...:lol:

 

[The D]

At the time of the on site assessment I had only had my NVQ2 less than a year and was only doing Social Housing work(3 x 150mm x 150mm courses in the Kitchens and Bathrooms,up to the ceilings around the bath if it had a shower)...not exactly very taxing to say the least. The paperwork involved while being very wordy and lengthy had very little relevance to producing quality work.

Did you produce evidence that you had in the past hit all the criteria required ?? An assessor can make judgements on prier learning and infer knowledge but if there is no evidence then that is not cool .

Things like training centres that falsify evidence and assessors that just pass anyone do the industry and the credibility of the qualification no favours.:mad2:

 

[Tony73]

your over qualified...:lol:

Are you jealous now ? :lol:

 

[jonnyc]

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.

 

[The D]

Are you jealous now ? :lol:

i am :tt1::tt1::tt1:

 

[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.