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Plumber seeks work and new life


Guest jedi69

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Hello everyone, my wife & i are serious about emigrating to Australia and living & working in Perth or the surrounding area, i am a Plumber & my wife is an Office Administrator for and Insurance Inspection firm, and i am after any information on the job market for people with our work skills in & around Perth.

In 2005 we took a voyage of rediscovery for my wife who lived & grew up in Mount Newman during the 70's and a holiday of a life time for me when we travelled through WA, we want to come back to Australia perminantly and looking through the various websites dealing with emigrating i am coming across alot of "information" thats not helpfull, so if anyone can supply any information/help as to the best way to achieve this it will be greatfully recieved.

:)

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Hello everyone, my wife & i are serious about emigrating to Australia and living & working in Perth or the surrounding area, i am a Plumber & my wife is an Office Administrator for and Insurance Inspection firm, and i am after any information on the job market for people with our work skills in & around Perth.

In 2005 we took a voyage of rediscovery for my wife who lived & grew up in Mount Newman during the 70's and a holiday of a life time for me when we travelled through WA, we want to come back to Australia perminantly and looking through the various websites dealing with emigrating i am coming across alot of "information" thats not helpfull, so if anyone can supply any information/help as to the best way to achieve this it will be greatfully recieved.

:)

 

 

Whereabouts in Lancashire are you freezing? :(

 

 

I'm a plumber from Preston; served my time at Tommy Crofts on Blackpool Road. Been off the tools for quite a while as i have been in the real estate game for the last decade................... have my own real estate agency north of the river here in Perth.

 

You'll find plumbing totally different here in WA but don't be disillusioned ...... you'll quickly pick it up. You are unlikely to come across Yorkshire capillary joints here............... everything is silver soldered so if you did the brazing, bronze welding bit as part of your City & Gulds ............... no problem .............. you'll be able to do it standing on your head.

 

Down-under plumbers need to be multi-skilled and we are expected to carry out a lot of tasks that in the UK we'd expect other trades to do. For instance .................. one of my first jobs in Perth many years ago back in 1976 was to sheet a gable end of a building. I managed it eventually but I was a lot slower than was expected of me ...................... mind you I'd never done owt like that before; but I soon got the hang of it.

 

Another job I copped was to make a square to round ............... well I didn't even know what one of them was? Turned out to be more of a tinker's job and it involved duct work for air-conditioning............. anyway; once I'd been shown how to operate the rollers and folding equipt .......... I soon picked up the hang of it.

 

Unfortunately the quality of plumbing work here in the west isn't the best ........... it's definitely cowboy territory.

 

Re Mt Newman................. our middle lad has just recently graduated from Uni at Kalgoorlie and he went up to Newman as he scored a post-graduate position with BHP in January. He loves it up there.......... doesn't mind the isolation at all.

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Thank you for the information, currently freezing buns off in Leyland, near Preston.

 

I will try to find out how to silver solder.

 

Thanks again.

 

 

Don't fret over it............ it's a doddle. You'll pick it up quickly here in Perth; it's just that your Sievert will be of little or no use.......... neither will those portable gas lamps................... you'll use E size oxy-acet bottles down under.

 

Let's hope North End beat Watford tonight?

 

Sooner you get over here the better eh................... we were in Preston this time last year freezing our buns off............. found it very depressing sadly.

 

Good luck with your move down-under.

 

Ask away if you have any more questions.

 

 

Regards

 

 

Johnno

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Prestons still depressing, have to take the wife there later, its her birthday, no doubt i will have to spend alot of money today

:( I learnt how to use Oxy-Acte when doing a module on lead work will be digging out the books to refresh myself, do plumbers use compression or pushfit fittings in Oz?.

Glad your enjoying life down under we hope to be soon, everything is at the very early stages at the moment.

Thanks once again Johnno, your a wealth of information, i will more than likely be asking a few more questions.

 

Yous Simon.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Bobcat
Prestons still depressing, have to take the wife there later, its her birthday, no doubt i will have to spend alot of money today

:( I learnt how to use Oxy-Acte when doing a module on lead work will be digging out the books to refresh myself, do plumbers use compression or pushfit fittings in Oz?.

Glad your enjoying life down under we hope to be soon, everything is at the very early stages at the moment.

Thanks once again Johnno, your a wealth of information, i will more than likely be asking a few more questions.

 

Yous Simon.

 

I need a good plumber Simon................ urgently!!

 

We've sprung a leak under a slate floor in the family room. I let my fingers do the walking and leafed through the yellow pages. Plumber sent a leak-detection guy................ leak detection guy recommended a pipe location expert ..................... plumber turned up................. but it's a dog of a job as it involves jack hammering the floor up............. or re-routing pipes through the roof.

 

Apparently some goose laid the copper pipe right under our concrete slab when the house was built............... can't remember if we were allowed to do that in the UK.............. maybe if we wrapped the pipe in Denso Tape it was permissible? Out here anything goes.:mad:

 

We have it sussed now............. have a quick shower then quickly turn off the hot water feeding down from the solarhart up on the roof. Had another plumber turn up today.............. he's going to give it a go so hopefully he'll bring his Kango hammer tomorrow?

 

I'd have a go myself but I've just picked up 8 new rental properties this week so in between trying to lay a limestone block retaining wall to keep the new workshop where it is.........I'm busy trying to recruit a good property manageress............... plus the old girth is a bit too big these days to be prancing around up in the roof space!!!

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Guest jedi69

Hi Bobcat, sorry about the delay in replying, have had some friends staying so i've been pretty busy, sorry to hear about the leak under the floor they are always a pain to sort out, the pipework should always be sheathed or wrapped if it is being laid under a concreat floor to prevent the cement eating into the copper,it happens alot here in the UK when people have new kitchens put in & someone lays a pipe in the floor instead of routing it around the walls, if the plumber can cut into the pipe work at some point & reroute it through the ceiling void & reconnect it again at least you would not have to dig up the floor. good luck with the leak and every thing else, we are off to a job & immgration expo in leeds next month to ask alot of questions and hopefully find out if we stand a chance of being able to get to Oz.

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  • 8 months later...

Hi Daz,

 

Sorry for the late reply, i tried to reply last night but i've not been on the site for so long i had forgotten my password(Doh!).

Well things have not gone at all well for us it looks like our dream of getting to sunny Oz will forever remain just that, a dream, the wife got worried that that we could not afford to move over and start up a new life even if we got accepted, oh and we could also not afford the various fees that everyone wanted for visas, medicals etc, even selling one of my kidneys on ebay wouldn't cover it (don't know why they work perfectly, i should know, what with all the beer and wine they have filtered out of my body over the years).

 

But the real kick in the pants came last month when i got made redundant, so as i type this to you i am an unemployed plumber, everybody needs a plumber i keep getting told but only if they have the money to spend, and here in merry old England people are not spending at the moment because of the dreaded credit crunch, i hope things are better in Oz for you.

 

So alas dear Daz unless i get some work in from one of the many leaflets I have been printing off and sticking though letterboxes or from the tiny little advert i put in the local paper, we are going no where fast (except further into the red, just had a loverly letter from our energy supplier telling us they are going to put up our bill by an extra £50!, why? apparantly we are going to have a bad winter, thats good, it go's along with the bad summer we had too), bet your glad you got out of here just in time!

 

But if you or anone you know needs a plumber and is willing to pay for mileage i am willing to come across, sorry to sound a bit down but things suck at the moment(oh and it's started to snow again and guess what it's not even the good stuff you can make a decent snowball with, i don't know whats the world is coming to?)

 

I wish you all the best for your life in Oz i hope that the sky is blue the sea is warm and most importantly the beer is cold.

 

Yours Simon

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Hi Daz,

 

Sorry for the late reply, i tried to reply last night but i've not been on the site for so long i had forgotten my password(Doh!).

Well things have not gone at all well for us it looks like our dream of getting to sunny Oz will forever remain just that, a dream, the wife got worried that that we could not afford to move over and start up a new life even if we got accepted, oh and we could also not afford the various fees that everyone wanted for visas, medicals etc, even selling one of my kidneys on ebay wouldn't cover it (don't know why they work perfectly, i should know, what with all the beer and wine they have filtered out of my body over the years).

 

But the real kick in the pants came last month when i got made redundant, so as i type this to you i am an unemployed plumber, everybody needs a plumber i keep getting told but only if they have the money to spend, and here in merry old England people are not spending at the moment because of the dreaded credit crunch, i hope things are better in Oz for you.

 

So alas dear Daz unless i get some work in from one of the many leaflets I have been printing off and sticking though letterboxes or from the tiny little advert i put in the local paper, we are going no where fast (except further into the red, just had a loverly letter from our energy supplier telling us they are going to put up our bill by an extra £50!, why? apparantly we are going to have a bad winter, thats good, it go's along with the bad summer we had too), bet your glad you got out of here just in time!

 

But if you or anone you know needs a plumber and is willing to pay for mileage i am willing to come across, sorry to sound a bit down but things suck at the moment(oh and it's started to snow again and guess what it's not even the good stuff you can make a decent snowball with, i don't know whats the world is coming to?)

 

I wish you all the best for your life in Oz i hope that the sky is blue the sea is warm and most importantly the beer is cold.

 

Yours Simon

 

Don't give up Simon; she'll be right mate. You'll come good. i felt just like you do now when we first arrived in Perth as a family. We had 3 toddlers and a lot of bills to pay and i was an unemployed plumber here in Perth for 4 bloody years. Never been out of work at all prior to arriving here. So glad though that we didn't just pack it in and go back home to Preston......... and as it is now we've cracked it as they say.......... and you will too. Just stick in there. She'll be right mate.

 

We just had a week up in Mt Newman where your missis is from, very interesting, really enjoyed it. The mining game has certainly changed a lot since I was in it........... and all for the better.

 

Keep yer chin up.

 

Johnno

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Guest plumbobs

hi bobcat

you have worried me to death why did it take 4 years to get a plumbing job is the job situation as bad as it here in the uk? i am a plumber coming out to perth january 19th with wife and 4 kids no job, no house and not a lot of money now as had to take a big drop on my house here are we in for a tough time? any advice would be really welcome

 

pete

 

pete

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hi bobcat

you have worried me to death why did it take 4 years to get a plumbing job is the job situation as bad as it here in the uk? i am a plumber coming out to perth january 19th with wife and 4 kids no job, no house and not a lot of money now as had to take a big drop on my house here are we in for a tough time? any advice would be really welcome

 

pete

 

pete

 

G'uday Pete

 

The timing was all wrong when we arrived; we were amidst the 'recession we had to have' plus I had just turned 40 which in those days old codgers like me were deemed to be over the hill and on the scrap heap. Never been out of work in my life up until then, and i had always been able to choose top jobs in the plumbing caper.

 

The annoying thing was i had been running the show for many years, had a lot of experience ............ but i couldn't get a look in. My last position was up in the Solomon Islands as Operations & Maintenance Supt and I had plumbers, boilermakers, painters, fitters, machinists, plant operators etc all under my control............. we arrived in Perth and i couldn't even get a job sweeping the streets:mad:.

 

I wouldn't panic cos times have changed now, you'll be right. you just need to adapt to how different the plumbing game is over here. I've got an oxy-acetylene plant with 'E' size bottles you can borrow if you want? The old Sievert blowlamp isn't much use over here, they do a lot of silver soldering over here with oxy-acetylene.

 

I've got a 4 bed 2 bath home on my books available to rent at $600 per week. It's fully furnished with all linen, cutlery and crockery and is available from 17th January. It's in Inverell Green opposite the golf course at Carramar, less than 5 minutes down the street from where we live. There's a six seater spa too.

 

Unfurnished rentals in the Carramar,Tapping area tend to lease out for round the $450 upwards mark. carramar is pretty handy for everything, good schools, public transport, and only a 10 minute drive to Joondalup and the beach. The city of perth is a 30 minute drive away, less if you catch a train in Joondalup.

 

good luck

 

Johnno

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Guest plumbobs

Hi Jonno

Thanks for getting back i was getting quite worried. Your house sounds great but i am coming out on my own now and the family will follow when i get a job and house for them so i wouldn't need anything quite that big unless of course my missus changes her mind again and decides she wants us all to go out together

 

Merry Christmas

 

Pete

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  • 2 weeks later...

It is not unusual to be out of work for some time if you don't know where to look for the hidden job market. I have put together some pointers that may help you to tap into the WA hidden job market. The short answer is to move away from the traditional jobsearch methods. See our sister website:http://www.perth-sa-migrant-support.com.au

 

Hope it helps someone!

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