davierobbsagod Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 In a nutshell, I retired 2 years ago with a pension after 30 years in the public sector, pensions not enough to keep me afloat I served my time as a sparky and continued to do "electrical work" throughout my public sector career. I have city and gulids parts 1 and 2 (1979-80) I also have the old c certificate (electrical technician) all jobs for sparks nowadays ask for 17th edition qualified. my IEE regs book is 13th edition....although I'm fairly competant in fault finding and still have my old test gear and have used them in some of the work I have done. Anyhooo....... is there any work out there for ancient sparkys such as myself without this 17th edition thingy, I'm only looking for a couple of days work a week to supplement the pension dont want to go down the route of self employment ,tried that a long long time ago ...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandydunn Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 (edited) Bad news buddy. It’s 18th edition now, which I believe everyone has to have a competency certificate for, we’re booked into a course for it next month and I believe a lot is changing in the regulations You could try and do cash in hand jobs, but that can lead to all sorts of other problems, if you know what I mean. Everything seems quite tight nowadays for h&s purposes etc etc, can’t just rock up somewhere and claim to be a spark, (not that I’m implying that’s what you’re doing) Most of the companies that we do work for insist on us supplying them with our cscs cards, H&M’s certificate and anything else that we have, so when they get audited, then they can show that the people doing their work is competent and fully registered, I mean you can’t even legally build a scaffold or use a cherry picker without having to do courses on it, lots of office wanks will also ask to see all of these before a job can commence Lots of loops to jump through nowadays, the industry is turning into a place where everyone would rather the job took twice as long and they didn’t get sued, than let us turn up and do what we know. Have you/would you consider anything like a handyman/Storeman type of thing? Maybe another avenue that could be looked into? Im sure having a trade background may help rather than them employing some numbskull that doesn’t know their arse from their elbow Edited January 5, 2019 by dandydunn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eisegerwind Posted January 5, 2019 Share Posted January 5, 2019 As a DIY'er I believe that if I look at socket a bit funny I may be open to prosecution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldo Posted January 6, 2019 Share Posted January 6, 2019 (edited) To be honest the 17th / 18th edition test is a piece of piss. It's not testing your Electrical knowledge, rather your ability interpret the Regs book. Don't think it cost more than £250 to sit at college. The book and on site guide will probably cost you about £120 though. It's the inspection and testing course that's the expensive and tough one that allows you to sign off installations and PAT. There's good money to be made in that. Just checked.... Jeez, it's £480 to do at college. Would like to think that includes the books though. Edited January 6, 2019 by Coldo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davierobbsagod Posted January 6, 2019 Author Share Posted January 6, 2019 13 hours ago, dandydunn said: Have you/would you consider anything like a handyman/Storeman type of thing? Maybe another avenue that could be looked into? I thats exactly what I'm doing at the moment 2 1/2 days a week in a complex of flats near me, mostly painting ...I'd repaired 2 washing machines replaced 4 sockets repaired an intermediate switch problem and replaced a cooker element before anyone asked for my city and guild certs... I also have H&S qualifications far above anything you need for site work but at my age I'm just looking for work I can turn up and do without thinking about it.. I'd also thought about an electricians mate or something like that so if the sparky asked me to hand him his pyro stripper at least I could give him the right thing but all those jobs seem to be full time and I'm only needing a couple of days or even a zero hour contract so I can continue to go holidays/golf/daytime drinking...when I feel like it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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