BEVS

Would a UK plumber/gasfitter find full time work in France please?
What is necessary to have the UK qualifications assessed and accepted by France, or is there a test to take?

Are there any British contractors employing UK plumbers in France?

Sorry , so many questions.

Thanks.

bourgogne

sorry i cant answer your question in full
but;

FFS yes we need some form of quality, turn up when you say you will....... perhaps in the same month? or then maybe 3 months later at 8am?

I would tell you that although systems differ here, you would be OVER qualified

however translated into french;

you can do the job in 8 months, take months off and refuse to reply to customer, then get grumpy when customer visits you, so you refuse to attend to the breakdown of your installation. take epic lunch breaks, turn up pissed, never ask the customer what he/she wants...... but only TELL them what YOU will do, never allow them any system information so they can set the temp less than 50° (coz you so far failed to install a temp guage) inside and refuse to lower the skin removing hot water temps. let the customer pay the gaz bill for this.


could you cope? god we need more of your skills here!

eg; (electric EDF)

my meter is faulty, 88920KWH in two DAYS! "thats normal" for what frigging heathrow airport??????? !!!!! I have to say I was told i had electric heating...... that would be the gaz fired boiler then?

get your ass over here, and trust me you are needed.


i could go on

arrive unqualifed, please let me know where, you'd get work!!!!!!!!!!

bourgogne

sorry just read my rantings again

i was being sarcastic as to how the french plumbers work.

none of that was aimed at you, and indeed i think some kick up the anus is needed for some of the so called professionals in this country.

BEVS

Its OK. I didn't think it was aimed at us.

When we first considered leaving the UK,my first thought was France. What concerned me was that my husband speaks no French [although he knows what a plombier is ] and whether he would get work.

We ended up coming to New Zealand 18 months ago. A mistake.

My husband is a time served plumber/gasfitter who has 30 years exp. So ,he is the real thing.

bourgogne

should have come here babe, i could put on at least 10 houses in this village alone! we need some qualified profs............. not corn cig smoking locals

BEVS

A move to France is back on the cards mate.

halina38

There is a lot of building work in France, and plumbers do very well judging by their cars and houses. The things I've read here are not typical: our local plumber will call back even late at night, and an emergency repair job the next morning (a Saturday) wasn't expensive. The (relatively extensive) plumbing work we've had done was done on time, at the price quoted - and hasn't leaked. So I'd say you'd have plenty of competition - and unless you're going to work exclusively for UK expatriates you'll have to speak (and write) fluent French.

bourgogne

lucky you !

was this in 2 or 3 years???

did you have to call the police to get the plumber out?

money in advance and efffff all !!!!!!

then police ! odd how he popped his head in the door at 8am, then set the heating to max! underfloor at 90° you could not stand on it!!!! idiot! switched off again to await another visit in a month or 8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bfg69bug

my old mans a plumber too...(20 years exp, certified until 5 years ago when his tickets (14 tickets, different things) ran out. we are looking at the possibility of moving to france but not sure on which area. i´m guessing somewhere with a reasonable english comunity might be a good start then? would there be plenty of work around for plumbers? how much do they charge, for example for a call out or to change a sink? i wonder if its the same as spain ?

halina38

If you don't speak French you will find it very difficult. Look also at earlier replies on this site regarding tax, social security etc. There is a lot of paperwork required by the French state for the self-employed.
There is a lot of work, but most people (to avoid experiences detailed by other people on this site) go by word of mouth. If you have friends already based in France who can help you get started don't be put-off - life is good here - but if you don't, you'll be stuck with dealing with anglophone clients - until you make a name for yourself at least.
Prices.
Last July our local plumber put in 7.5 square meters of solar panels, a 500L hot water tank and all the (insulated) pipework necessary to connect everything up to our old boiler in the basement (including work on the roof etc) and charged 980 Euros for the two days labour. This price includes two years free service (not just leaks, but any help we want getting everything to work as we want). He also detailed for us (with his estimate) all the subsidies we could claim for the work, and afterwards supplied us with the full dossiers we needed to get the money from the Region and the local government. He included type written letters in our name (we only needed to sign), his bill, technical details and even a colour photo of the installed panels. He came back a couple of days after the installation to check everything was OK and answer any questions. He came back at the end of the summer when we found a minor leak. At the same time he installed an extra temperature gauge half way up the tank for me without charge. So that's the sort of service you'll need to compete with. There are horror stories certainly, but I don't think more so here than anywhere else. You hear that French only give work to French. That's not quite true; they tend to give work to people "in the family", friends, people in the same commune. This makes good sense all round. I give work to my local plumber - he finds it easy to drop by and knows that if he does a good job I will spread the word. I know that if he does a lousy job I can make sure all the neighbours know... It's hard for outsiders to break into this. I find tradesmen by asking neighbours - and by asking tradesmen who have done a good job for me. I found an excellent carpenter via my chimney sweep. The chimney sweep asked me this autumn whether I was happy with the work the carpenter had done (and took a look at it)! It turned out that he had found that young man just starting his business a huge amount of work - enough to get him off the ground - and was checking to see that the work done was good! I'd say you'd need someone like this to help you.
Halina