No quitten we're whelan onto chitchat 12.

A friend's son wanted to do plumbing, such an ordeal to get a plumber to take him on. They eventually wangled a lad to take him on and he's delighted he did as he's a great worker

if it’s heating rads then yea I’d say a good external rated condensing boiler is an option. Might be easy plumbed into existing system.

I’d say it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Yea with plastering you can work indoors in bad weather but with blocklaying you’re not working up over your head a lot of the time!

I was a carpenter. I did every bit of it from shuttering to roofing to second fix and eventually a shopfitting/doors specialist. I still had 50 lads on the sites and a small workshop as well in 2010. Got badly badly burnt after that and left the trade completely. When I was young I worked for a plasterer/small builder and did a little bit of everything except upright blocks. I built several houses over the years in between my own business. I plastered a few of them and they turned out ok.

Plastering is very different today to then, my mate is a big plastering subby and he says about 90% of what they do now is sprayed on or just taping and jointing, very little hardship skimming big ceilings or throwing on sand and cement undercoat.

Blocks are worse with reaching across the wide cavities, but there's far far less blocks going on anyway, they've been edited out of nearly all housing schemes and commercial buildings. Just the occasional one-off house or extension now. No loss.

Construction has changed more since I left it than in the fifty years before that.

ICF is being used a lot.

I wouldn't mind my young lad going into a trade but not one of the traditional ones. My own body was feeling the effects of it and I was off tools at 35, after 17 years of a 'dry trade'.

Id hate to be lifting fire doors or down on my knees fighting with skirting or floors now, not to mind at blocks or skimming at 65.

Exactly this. For most of my construction career I wasnt really farming much. I could never understand lads coming home from one physical job to do another.

I can say after experience of both that farming is healthier on the body. More movement and less time on your knees. More jerk lifting and dragging in farming though, and the tractor is hard on the back unless its one of the newer ones.

Probably why people suggest this combination is that farmers are great in construction, work ethic, strength, versatility, but also that there used always be construction work in the local area where you could run home to calve a cow.

Also, doing a trade didnt involve being away in college for years, and possibly getting a taste for city or other country life.

He must have been some man, - most lads would be doing nicely to throw away 1500 a week unless they were at deadwall.

2 seconds in the hands is the secret to blocks. That and put it down once, two tips to straighten it and leave it to fcuk alone. I could never manage that, I'd be messing with it too long and feck up the bed under it.