I picked up on a couple of adverts in the Sun today for wet trade 'schools'. As an avid DIY'er I'm tempted to do a 5 day course as am constantly frustrated by my lack of confidence in this area.
Has anyone had experience of 'Plasterings and Artexing Training School (PATS)' or 'The Building Skills Centre' ??
I'm based in Warwickshire, so if anyone knows of such a course more local to me that'd help too!
I went on the dry lining course. Spent all week dry lining an area the size of a room then to my horror learned that I had to go onto the hand plastering course to learn how to skim!! Apparently dry lining is all they do in new homes now. Go on the hand plastering course you'll get a lot more of the tuition (they run the courses at the same time)if you want to spend a week learning how to use a hammer and sand paper go on the dry lining course!
I did a 2 day course at Aldershot Building Centre (?), and it was really excellent. There were 16 of us, and by mid-morning of the second day, we each had a wall plastered, and every one of them was better quality than the work two plasterers I hired had done, and I couldn't plaster to save my life beforehand. The course also covered rendering -- we all did sand/cement/lime and I also did some pebbledash. The teacher was really excellent. He also did a 5 day course and the full C&G, and the same for bricklaying. Half the people on my course had been on his bricklaying course the week before and they said that was excellent too.
I looked in their prospectus this year and there were far fewer courses scheduled, which made me wonder if they'd lost that teacher. It certainly won't have been through lack of demand -- they were booked up about 9 months in advance when I did it. I also said I could fill-in for a cancellation with a day's notice, and that got me on the course in a month, IIRC.
I'll second that - I did the Aldershot Plastering weekend too - top teacher. On the way into the centre on the first day there is a small piece of plastering that looks like marble to look at, its that good. He said ours would look like that (which we thought it never would) - and he was right. Very enjoyable !
Phoned them up today. May is the next available date for a definite place but I'm down as forth reserve for April. Was told that after five reserves it's unlikely you'll get a place. Months up to March have 10-12 reserves! Neil
Was £70 when I did it, but had gone up to £80 last I saw. Would still be worth twice that IMHO (providing they still have the same or an equally good teacher).
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