The daughter's new house

[DJC]

I repaired mine several times, including taking it apart to replace springs and pawls ? I think I was about 11 at the time.

[alan_m]

At work, my employers pay hardware/electrical/electronic engineering students, having done 1/2 year of their degree, to spend 1 year in industry for work experience. They are expected to attend the same hours as everyone else and work on real contracts. Those who show an attitude for the work are given difficult tasks, with appropriate help and supervision!

They are not required to join the company after they return to University and get their degree.

I am seriously impressed with our current crop by their work ethic and their skill levels (albeit without real world working experience). However it may have taken them a few weeks to realise that getting to work requires them not to go on the piss with their new found wealth Sunday to Thursday evenings/early mornings. We work flexi hours (7am to

9:45am start) and they soon realise that turning up at 9:45 requires them to make up their hours late in the afternoon/evening.

On the other hand...

The company works with a few of local schools and invites pupils of

14/16 years of age for a half a day of work experience with us engineers. This is often a sole destroying experience with vast majority of the children attending having no interest at all in engineering and having no technical ability. Playing computer games and having a Farcebook account is not what employers require.

[tabbypurr]

+1. What I don't like are the ones that reckon they can get by in the world by not doing - yet still turn up to work. Sometimes when it pleases them!

NT

[Cursitor Doom]

Any stupid, incompetent c*nt can call themselves a "builder" - and that's half the problem. It should become a protected title along the lines of what 'engineer' means in Germany.

[DerbyBorn]

Bill Wright wrote in news:n25dkk$t01$2 @speranza.aioe.org:

Size does not imply additional quality.

[ed]

Seconded. I got involved in listing out the faults on one such earlier this year. The list ran to 3 pages, and that was only the heating and plumbing.

Top of the list was "The installation of a flueless gas fire without providing additional ventilation. This, despite the manufacturer explicit and emphatic (large red capital letters) instructions to do so."

[Bill Wright]

Normally large houses are built to a higher standard. In theory.

Bill

[dennis]

They tend to be built to a price by the same people who build the smaller houses.

[Bill Wright]

In some cases they are built by the same firms. In that case they usually work to a higher standard on visible things because of customer expectations. However they skimp on all the things the customer won't see.

However there are many small (family, often) firms who specialise in building small numbers (often one-offs) of up-market housing. Quite commonly these houses are built to a very high standard. The difference in areas the customer doesn't see (the loft, under the floors) is startling.

Incidentally don't be fooled by the NHBC.

Bill

[dennis]

The head of building control bought a house here so I know they were built properly. I also observed every stage and know enough to know it was done properly. There is nothing difficult in building a house.

[charles]

Like a TV distribution system where all the cables are just pushed into the "Belling" plugs

[Bill Wright]

There was an estate of cheap new houses built near here and a lot of the purchasers opted for an extra: Loft-mounted TV aerial: £100 + VAT. What they got was a ten element aerial connected to the coax but shoved back into the cardboard box. The box was left on the floor of the loft. The builder attempted to bullshit his way out of it but eventually had to give refunds to our customers.

Bill

[DerbyBorn]

Bill Wright wrote in news:n2hh0q$vgs$ [e-mail]:

Bigger houses may have more expensive fittings that the builders will not have read the installation instructions for. More scope for errors and bodges.

[DerbyBorn]

dennis@home wrote in news:564b9619$0$48629 $b1db1813$ [e-mail]:

Agreed. Same hourly rate - same workers, same forman,

[newshound]

At the risk of winding up Harry, might I mention the young Syrian refugee on the radio yesterday who left Syria with a place in medical school, and is doing GCSEs this year and A levels next year in order to be able to apply to medical school here.

[PeterC]

Another doctor for Glasgow Airport? ;-~

[John Rumm]

Any SIC (to borrow the phrase) can call themselves and Engineer in the uk, never mind a builder.