How I became a Gas engineer

As the son of a self employed Plumbing & Heating Engineer you could say it was written in the stars that I would follow in his footsteps. I remember school holidays filled with drilling holes and carrying tool boxes all to earn some extra money for much needed Football cards and Gob stoppers.

As the end of secondary school neared I was inevitably asked the dreaded question “What do you want to do when you leave school??” I then realised that I didn’t have any idea!! I decided to take the obvious option so I carried on up the academic ladder and enrolled into College to start my A- levels.

It didn’t take long before I realised this wasn’t for me so I decided to ask my Dad if I could join the Family Business. He agreed under the condition that I concentrated on studying Gas and became a Gas Engineer.

I don’t think I really thought to much about it at the time but he was adamant that this would stand me in good stead and offer me plenty of opportunities throughout my working life.

I agreed and 2 years later I had passed what seemed like a hundred exams and dozens of practical assessments but I had finally become a Corgi Registered Gas Engineer (Cue Celebrations in the street and new national holiday being announced by the Queen!!)

After the excitement had died down it was soon Monday morning again and I was back at work. We were working on a new housing development and it was It was approaching the final stages of the job. My Dad put it to me would I ever consider leaving my current job with him and joining a larger company which concentrated more on gas.

We agreed that this would be the logical next step for me as to become a better Gas Engineer I needed not only to know how to fit a boiler (mainly what I was doing with him) but also how to carry out fault finding and become experienced in the inner workings of the appliances.

I soon found myself a job working for a medium sized company that carried out all manner of gas tasks where I picked up a years worth of domestic experience before becoming Commercially qualified.

This meant that I was now working on larger appliances and really starting to delve into and starting to understand the workings of commercial Plant rooms and larger building systems.

10 years on and I’ve never looked back, I enjoy a great variation of day to day work and am constantly being challenged whether its by a new piece of state of the art technology or a customer who needs you to go that extra mile to get the job done.

Ben Joseph - ACS Gas Supervisor