Social Housing Jobs

[sparkside1]

I have been offered a job as an electrician for a heating company, wiring up boilers and heating plans in social housing.
Is it worth doing or is it a soul destroying venture? Has anyone got experience of this work? The contracts are based in the south east outside of London.

 

[johnsparks23]

What's the money like?

 

[trev]

I did 3 years with a local authority on the decent homes programme. It was great, money for old rope really BUT some of the places we had to go into were proper flea pits.
One house was inhabitted by a junkie, we spotted some used syringes before we unpacked the gear. Walked out and refused to do the work, they had to move him and all his stuff out and get a specialist cleaning company in to do a full sweep of the place. They even used a metal detector to make sure there were none left.
Must have cost them thousands. Scumbags!

 

[sparkside1]

28K basic plus van. tools and equipment is my problem.

 

[sparkside1]

well Trev, that's the kind of tenant I was thinking of. To be honest, I have walked into places where I didn't want to put my tool bag down due to the filth but that was private owners! Do you get many problems with the tenants themselves?

 

[Brightspark2]

I know someone who did it for a bit and said it was boring...

OK at first but then its the same thing day in day out...

 

[trev]

There were one or two who we had problems with but all you do is walk out and let the tennant liaison people sort them out after all, it's their job.
It has to be said though, the vast majority of the people I came into contact with were absolutely great. Especially the older ones.

 

[GMES]

Agree with Trev, you can get some proper hovel's, but don't judge all people the same a lot of decent folk out there.
Personally if it were me, I would put up with it for as long as you can, and get as much overtime as possible, bank as much money as you can. If you dont like it get out and try something else.

Life is about experimenting and trying different things you never know you may really enjoy it!

 

[johnsparks23]

I worked with a team doing council re wires. It was hard graft. I presomally
dont like domestic work, dealing with the tenants.
we had a few BS claims against us for damaged property.
Doing the heating systems seems like a fairly straight forward job. On that money though,
you'd need plenty of overtime.

 

[sparkside1]

The money is a concern here and not sure there is a much overtime available. Nothing is finalised and I may be able to negotiate a few more pennies. What is the norm regarding salary for this sort of thing? I'm not wanting a career in this, just something for now whilst I look around for a descent commercial job.