Badfishman

Hi, gas heating engineer here wanting to make the move! undecided on a provenance at the moment and im slightly confused with the qualification side of things. could any expat plumbers give me any advice on resources/prices etc for the red seal?

How is the current construction trade in Canada? Is there much work out there?

Badfishman

Aviator

Red Seal is administered by the provinces individually, it is not a qualification. It is for plumbing only. Gas fitting is a separate certification administered by the safety authority in each province, it is not Red Seal endorsed and not interprovincial. You would need to contact the safety authority in the province you decide to try and got to.

hutchy100

What kind of plumbing work do you do, its way different on the heating side I lived there for 3 years way better off here in my eyes

MrHyperPants

You have to prove how many hours you have done in plumbing. For British Colombia, you have to prove a minimum of 9630 hours. I think Alberta is less then BC.

In order to challenge the Red Seal Interprovincial Exam you need to fill out an application form. On the form for BC, you just provide how many hours you have worked as a plumber. Then references to say you have done these hours. It can be more then one company. I just listed about 4 company's I had worked for and gave the bosses e mail address and phone numbers. The BC Trade board didn't even want any other paper work or copies of my city and guilds. It takes 6 - 8 weeks to be approved. As I didn't set a date that I want to sit my exam. I have 1 year to sit and pass it form the date of my approval letter.

You have to know the National Plumbing Code book inside out. You will also need to know something on rigging as well, which is not In the code book.

The exam is 4 hours long with 125 questions I think. You need 70% to pass and most people fail. The exam is open book and multi choice, but out of the 4 answers they give you to a question, two of them are correct, but you have to make sure you pick the most correct answer. This is what I have been told by my work mates.

One of the guys I work with got 90% in his pre exam at college before taking his red seal exam, which he passed with 78%. He found out today that half his class failed.

If you private message me, I can send you a pdf version of the code book.

Not trying to put you off, just giving you the facts. I have been working as a 4th year apprentice so I can get my head around everything first before sitting my exam. I'm also going to be doing a online refresher course (12 weeks) offered by BCIT to prep me for the exam.