New, old member - welcome again.

[Marcin]

Welcome again!

I'm 45, a Registered Adult nurse working in busy, acute medical wards. At work, I almost constantly deal with fluids and tiny pipeworks: IV, subcut, veins, ports, midlines, cannulas, oral, and nasogastric.. Yay..

Yet, after Covid19 something started to slowly break down at me. Classic burnt out.

About a year ago, my Father passed away. As a ship engineer, he never really understood my work choices. Left a big house in a bit of disrepair. Purely out of necessity, I had to change the solid fuel boiler, and then the domestic hot water tank. And...something clicked in me - that was fascinating, logical, and as neat as I made it. I liked it so much, I decided to join my local college and do the Level 2 in plumbing! (Crazy, I know!)

I will probably never earn any money from professional plumbing, but I have found bending copper very therapeutic and satisfying.

And after two years, I will call myself a plumber 😎

 

[cjg]

very nice bit of pipe work if you have done it,, well done.

 

[Marcin]

very nice bit of pipe work if you have done it,, well done.

Thank you! Yes, all my work. Obviously, I didn't bend 28mm. 🙂 Even 22mm was tough- I must work out a little more often 🙂)

A few interesting differences between Poland and the UK. Plumber hemp is much preferred than the PTFE tapes. It was almost impossible to buy compression valves-local shops do not stock it.

Flux is not clear-only available was the one with solder specks/powder. I admit, it is easier to solder joints as the flux changes colour from Grey to Silver, when ready to add solder.

Solder rolls are thinner - 2.75mm diameter instead of usual UK 3.25mm

But the best? Metric Poland widely uses imperial pipe sizing names, while imperial UK deals with mm

 

[jerrysimpson]

Hi there! Another newbie here