Welcome to the Dudley Unplugged podcast, a show that gets to

the heart of plumbing. Okay,

so welcome back to another episode of Dudley Unplugged, and today we're going

to be talking about the growing numbers of women who are choosing plumbing and

heating as a career. I'm your host Mark Morris and we

are joined on Dudley Unplugged by Helena from

Pink Plumbing and Karen from KazGas. So welcome both.

Yeah, pretty much. For some reason it brought me the back way and it

threw loads of country lanes. I didn't even think it was like

Yeah, I just thought it was... Yeah, I was surprised. But

Yeah, I drove through quite a few puddles. I came down one puddle and there was water on

one side of the road, water on the other. And I thought, I'm going to aim for the middle because that could be a hole

and a little bit gnarlier or somewhere. So I really don't want to get down there. I

envisioned the scene from Titanic as the car went into the water

Yeah, it's like the car just goes all over the place in the water. Yeah, it's not very nice at

all. So just one

Or gas engineers in terms? Me, I've been

a gas engineer for 25 years now. Wow. Yes.

So I started off with plumbing at college and

then went on to do an apprenticeship at British Gas, which

I was with them for 22 years. And now I've got my own business, KazGas,

which I've been doing more plumbing as well as gas engineer and been

I've been doing gas for roughly a year and then

So what drove you both to

sort of look at plumbing and heating as a career choice? Because 25 years

Yeah, I sort of left school, I didn't really know what I wanted to

do. My mum said I've got to stay into

full-time education so I didn't want to stay on. So I went

to the local technical college and I actually fancied being an electrician. So

I went along, I looked at the electrician's course and I thought, that looks

a bit boring. So I was like, I quite fancy the

plumbing though. So yeah, I did that at college for two

No, you were the only female in the group. Yeah. So, um, yeah,

I mean, the difficulty was when you do a course at

college, you have to obviously try and get work experience and

they tried to get me onto a site, but none of the sites

had female toilet facilities at that point. So I

was like, I'm, I ain't bothered. I'll just go and use a portaloo, but

they know they wouldn't let me go on a site. So I had to do my work experience in

I suppose that's not something you really think about, I suppose, you know. Ironically

going for a plumber's course and there isn't any sort of toilets is quite

not something you'd... Yeah, it sounds a bit unusual. Now you would think that's unusual.

Yeah, yeah. But like I say, at the time it didn't bother me. You know, I

was like 18, I went first. But yeah, they

wouldn't let me go on site. So yeah, finding work experience is

quite difficult. But on the flip side of that, because I was a woman on

a plumbing course, did get me opening things

like a new plumbing store that opened there. They

So I was a little celebrity. What

So my dad is an electrician. So you went, I ain't doing

electrics. I used to go to work with him. But no, it didn't interest me

in the slightest. But I've always been like the hands-on type of person. And

yeah, my mum's mate husband,

I think it was. He said, why don't you come with me for

a day. So I had to go, flooded my first toilet on the

first day. Yeah. And then from there

enrolled into college, made sure that I liked it first, did

college, my level two, and then we went did

my apprenticeship at Bovis Homes. Had the same problem toilets. So

the ladies toilet was used by managers and site agents.

We all shared this one key. And yeah, I had to even

queue for the toilet at times. It wasn't

great. But yeah, and then now

So you both have gone out on your own. What drove you

Well, I, like I say, I worked for British Gas for 22 years

and I had a good career with them, you know, I learnt a lot. But

it got, towards the end of it, they got, they were

trying to change all our careers, sorry, all our contracts, and

I'm a single parent, so for me, the

new contract they wanted us to sign wouldn't

have suited me as a single parent. So I

just, yeah, I made that decision there that if they push through with it,

and they went through with fire and rehire, so basically

if you didn't sign the contract, they'd dismiss you and

then you'd be re-engaged on this new contract. So I

knew if it went all the way to that point, I wouldn't, you

know, come back. So that's when I put

things in place, start setting up my own company and sort

It must have been a quite big step to think about for both of you to think about setting up on your own,

Yeah, yeah, especially because obviously, like I say, I'm

my son's only, you know, I'm his mom and there

were no one else paying the bills, just me and him. So for

me, if it didn't work out, I wouldn't get

my mortgage paid. So it was a big decision and

it was, you know, really scary at the time. But to

Um, so I took the plunge during COVID. Bit

of a risky move, but, um, I was working at my local co-op at the same time and

then jobs were coming in and then I was furloughed from my

apprenticeship. So I had to sort of like, in a weird way, three jobs on

the go and it just got too much. So once I finished my apprenticeship, it

was like a, I don't need the co-op. That was more of like a safety barrier

because it's just on the road and I was getting paid every day and, well not every day, but I

wish, um, but every month. And then, um, yeah, I just took the

I'd say it's a big step going out on your own. It's a

bit like stepping into the unknown, isn't it? You don't know how it's going to pan out. Especially

during COVID as well, as COVID was coming out, because that kind of

upset the apple cart on everything. So yeah, that's

an amazing bit. But I was doing some research, and I was looking

at the Office of National Statistics data, and it

says on there that only 2.4% of plumbers are female. So

that's not a lot of numbers out there. So, I mean, does

that surprise you that the numbers are that low in terms of the share

No, I don't think it's surprising because we're out there, like,

you know, you don't come across many female plumbers. Obviously

social media has brought us together and

we've made friends through social media, female gas engineers, plumbers,

and we're really good friends. So we've got that back

up now, but when you're out there in the bad world on your own, you

No, it's very slim. It's like I was saying, like, it's one

of those things that you feel like there's loads of yeah, because you're on social

media. But obviously, if

you step away from social media, you... I don't

know another one. I don't know any other female, but yeah,

Would you, from the experience that you've got now, would you recommend that

So it's been a good experience overall for yourselves, despite the toilet

Yeah, yeah. No, I would definitely encourage females

to do it. And funnily enough I went to do a job for a friend

I'd not seen for a few years and she

got two daughters that knew me and I'd done some work for them previously

fit radiators in the house and both her daughters now

are both at college, one's being an electrician and one's being a

plumber and she said that the main influence was

because they'd seen me doing the plumbing and fitting radiators and

that to me even if you just change one person

Yeah that really is, well it's inspiring isn't it? I

suppose people imitate what they see and if you don't see any it's hard now.

Like you say you'll see more people, start more people coming into it but

I mean have you found attitudes to female plumbers and engineers

has changed over the years? Has it got easier? from even

on site or when you knock on the door to come in and

Joe Bloggs answers the door and he's like, yeah, I called the plumber, what are you doing

I would say no, no. For 25 years, not

so much now I work for myself because they know KazGas is

turning up, they know that I'm female. But for 22 years,

even from day dot to the 22nd year, I

knocked on doors and had the same response. Oh, you're

a female. Oh, how long have they been letting women do

this? Honestly, you

get them, or you just, it becomes water off a duck's back, doesn't it?

But you do get all the comments that, you know, you just think, but

yeah, it's just, it's just what people, it's not, people

just expect to see a man and we've all, it's not discriminatory,

you know, we all expect to see men in certain jobs.

So when you do see a woman, even as a woman in

a man's world you're still like oh a woman brilliant you know.

I'll be honest I'd probably be surprised if I opened the door

and there was a female plumber on the doorstep because outside of

yourselves and Becca and Fia I

haven't met another female plumber so it's nice

to know that you are out there and I suppose it's

it's one of those, it's a societal change as things go on. You know, normal

women are doing different types of jobs and men are doing different types of jobs, but I

suppose there's some bastions that still are male, and this one clearly is still male dominated.

I mean, so I mean obviously you'd recommend, so

if someone came to you and said how do I become a plumber, how

college and apprenticeship. Yeah. Was that the best way? That's the best way. Yeah. Learning

on the job is the best way. Getting hands on with it,

knowing everything, getting passed down even like little tips from

like other plumbers. It's the little things that can make all the difference I

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It is, I mean learning on

the job, when I went to college I walked out of college with a qualification, but

I couldn't get a job because I had no experience and rightly so. I

wouldn't have felt comfortable just going out plumbing, you know, on your

own. So having the apprenticeship with British Gas, you

were learning in the classroom but also on the job. seeing

things in real life. So you're learning in the classroom and then seeing it,

it makes it make sense rather than trying to,

you know, visualise it in the classroom when you're trying to learn stuff. So yeah, I

Yeah, I mean, I've been, I've tried a little bit of plumbing here

and there, you know, as in I can change a tap, just about, or a

I mean, I wouldn't mind, I have no problems with rewiring, putting

some wires in or moving some wiring around, you know, or putting them

in plugs, switches, quite happy to do that, even though that could

probably kill me with the turn the electric on. But when it

comes to water, I'm a bit scared because I think the water, if I flood anything,

then, you know, my wife is going to kill me. But I

don't know, it just seems weird in my mind that that is far more

riskier to do the water than, I mean, I'll tell you one story. I

was trying to change the taps on the bath. And

bath taps, I've been told, are more hard to change than sink taps. So

I thought I'd done it up, but I was in the house on my own and the stopcock was

downstairs. So I had to go downstairs, turn

on the water, run back up the top of the stairs just to see if it was leaking, and

it was still, and every time there was more water coming out. It was absolutely, I

called a plumber in the end. God knows what he thought of me in the end when he came up. I was like,

yeah, some idiot's left the tap slightly, so I don't know how that's happened.

The thing is that's the funny thing because even as plumbers we have to

do that when we've done something and the stopcock's downstairs you do

that run upstairs because you just just in case yeah you do

even though you're confident you know what you're doing they could be like oh what

if i've missed them or what so you do you do the run anyway it's nice when

I mean, from all the years that you've been doing plumbing and heating, is

there a story that sticks in your mind that you'll never forget? Or

you think, oh, I wish I hadn't done that. I mean, we were speaking to Liam and

Pablo earlier, and they had a couple of stories each of mistakes and

things that they'd done. So is there anything that sort of sticks in your mind from

the years that you've been doing this that sort of is,

Oh, I don't know. I mean, you learn every day on this job. You never stop

learning. I think every experience you have is

a learning curve. And yeah, I mean,

there's been plenty of disasters, you know, water through the

ceiling, you know, you're changing a pump in an airing cupboard and

the valves haven't shut off. And yeah, you just, and

then the customer shouts up, I've got some water coming through

the ceiling. Is that okay? Is that normal? Yeah,

it's perfectly fine. People panic though. I mean, it's

not a big deal, a little bit of water through the ceiling, but yeah, that's

I've got one story. It was when I

was working with Squires Plumbing and it was

during COVID and it was like a block of students

accommodation and it was the soil stack was leaking and

no matter how many signs you put don't use toilets do

not use toilets do not flush down this one stack do not flush it literally

as we put on the last bit in someone flushed it and it was

one of those like mili of a second. It was so close. I'll

never forget it. I'll never forget it. Did you get wet? No, but

there was like all the insulation was just covered. I had to take it

all out and put it in a bag. Yeah. So

it wasn't the oh, dearie me. Yeah. I think

I was heaving like every video I was doing. I was like, no, no, what

Should have made him come down and clean his mess up. Or her mess up. I

suppose it's, I mean that I suppose is a sort of, it's

a hazard I suppose of the job that you're going to fix a toilet and I

Yeah. Yeah, try not to do too much of the

I switch off, I don't mind it. You don't? I don't mind it, no, it's

okay. I think when I'm on a job and I'm getting paid for it, it's okay.

But if it's like, if I'm out and about, I'm like, I'm not touching that. No, it's

Yeah, I remember just like when I first started working on

toilets really, I used to be like, oh you

know, get home, I need to get this straight in the wash, all my clothes

I've lent over the toilet, but you sort of become a little bit numb

to it don't y'all yeah you know i mean as long as

it's you know cleanish but yeah if you overthink it

you just end up yeah yeah you just would constantly be

doing it going home changing your clothes and scrubbing nails yeah

I mean there's some jobs, I don't mind getting my hands dirty and stuff, but

there's, I think maybe I'll draw the line at that maybe? I mean you're

a far braver person than I am on there. Yeah, it

doesn't sound pretty down there. I mean, not

toilet related, but I will say, on toilet related,

I worked in a cinema. multi-screen cinema and people

think that men's toilets are messy and dirty, nothing compared

to the horrors that you'd go into in the female toilets. It

was like, oh my god, I just couldn't believe that. I'm

not even going to go into the stories in there, but yeah, that was an eye-opener,

but we had to go, it was almost like you feel like, I need to close this off, it's just Terrible.

Yeah, funnily enough someone who worked for a nightclub said

the same thing, just the same thing to me last week and I was surprised because obviously

But yeah, it's just one that I mean I'll never forget, you don't forget that

thing that I always think that it's going to go into smelling a perfume and it's going to be all night

I walked into it and I was like oh wow this is

horrendous. So yeah,

that's a bit of a nightmare on there. But obviously being

a plumber nowadays is probably different to when

you started before. There's probably a

lot more positive attitudes to

women in the workplace now than what there probably has been. Have you

found that even fellow plumbers rather

than sort of the general public are more sort of quite happy to sort of

have you guys around and things like that? I

imagine it was probably a closed door club at one point but is it sort of a lot more

sort of within the plumbing teams themselves

Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, I was quite lucky because British

guests were always encouraging females to come and

work for them. So I wasn't a loner and

there was other females there, but you

always got the odd person that never really thought you should

be there. and they'd make the odd comment and that, but you

know, generally the team on a whole were really good. And

I actually, I got promoted to be a manager and they moved

me to Coventry. I work in Leicester, I worked in Leicester. You got sent to Coventry. I

got sent to Coventry, yeah. So I managed this whole

new team that I'd never met before. that's where

I met Leo, so one of our female plumber

friends. Yeah, so I was dreading it

because I thought, wow, what are they going to think? A woman's coming in,

you know, because you always feel like you've got to prove yourself a little bit more.

But to be fair, they were all fantastic and they took

me in and, you know, yeah, they were a really good team. So, I

think sometimes the barriers are in your own head rather than

other people. But that's probably due to the small

amount of negativity you do get and you do have. It

does make you that little bit like, oh, how's it going to

go down? Are they going to take it? So yeah, you do get

it. And it's the same now on social media platforms,

you post things, you put things up and you get

questioned by other male plumbers that

you know. If you were male they probably wouldn't be saying that

to you or trying to question what you're doing or why you're

doing it that way. Yeah and it's like a

I mean one thing I'll say, I mean meeting yourselves and the other

female ambassadors, we'll come to that in a second, is the positive attitude that

you guys all have. You're all absolutely delighted about

being plumbers and that's, that's, it's surprising. I

do like saying it. happy to be doing

their job which i thought was actually quite so quite surprising really because a

lot of people do the job because oh it's just a job i do but all of

you have got such a very positive attitude which is sort of i

don't know where that comes from in terms of how that is it's weird it's

like my mates when we used to go a night out they used to play a game they

go to someone in the bar and be like guess what she does as a job like

that used to be a game and i'm like why is that a game it's just my job but yeah

it is uh did anybody guess no i've got

drinks What sort of

weird and wonderful concoctions did they come up with for jobs they thought you might be doing?

Oh you probably don't want to ask

Maybe that wasn't such a clever thought process there. You

Have you found that there's any sort of initiatives or programs aimed

now at getting more females involved in plumbing and heating that

the government's running or that companies are running or anything like that? Is there anything

out there that if someone wanted to come into it they could use that

I know British Gas decided that

they wanted 50% females for the next intake of

apprentices last year. I don't know if it happened or not

but I know that's what their aim was and I think for

myself I've always been like you've got to make

it because I think the main reason there's not more women in

plumbing and jobs like ours is because they don't

see it as an option necessarily even when they're growing up and

I think you've got to sort of get in young and

let them know young that they can do this sort of job.

Because I went into a job while I was working

for British Gas and there was a boy in there who was about three years old and

even he said, but mom it's a it's a lady you

know and that to me shocked me because he's three like why

has he got a preconception but that's why i mean you know i've

always been i've always said like i'd love to make a cartoon with

a female in trades you know like you know bob the builder so

yeah that was i think that would be a good way of getting more girls switched

on from an early age to think that might be an option as a career for

I suppose as long as it's the opportunities there for everybody whether

people want to do it or not that comes down to a personal choice then doesn't it but

as long as there's no barriers to opportunity and if anyone wants to

Yeah I mean don't get me wrong we're on a girls group and there's a

lot of apprentices in that and they do get a lot of aggro and

some of them struggle with that and I think you see that

don't you with the girls group that we're on that you know some of the messages that

come through it's not easy for girls to be in

this world and I think it depends on your who you're working for

where you're working and that support because sometimes they have no

support and they're quite um they go through

a lot you know so it's quite replaceable yeah yeah but

it's not I think you have to be quite strong and have

to want to do it yeah to go through that and and come

I suppose having people they can look up to who have actually been, I

mean, 25 years is a long time to have been in any particular job. That's

something that I suppose when they're looking, thinking, yeah, actually it's possible. And

you know, there's people out there that can do it. So I suppose it's great that you are

part of a group that allows people to see the

Everyone's journey is, I think everyone sees the end point. Like

everyone can see Kaz being on her own and doing everything and

like smashing it. But I don't think everyone realizes that

everyone, most females still go through each barrier to

get to that point. I think that's what, I think sometimes the girls in

the group will just say, Oh, but she's doing that. She's doing that. And you're like, yeah, but I

didn't just get that. I've had a rocky road to get there at the same point.

Yeah and you're likely to face certain objects as well as you go

through it and just be prepared. I suppose if people are prepared and I suppose

it's helping them along the way which I suppose it goes a long way for

anyone to know that there is a pathway that

they can do. I mean it's great that you know that you are part of that group

because it's just something that adds extra support to everybody. Talking

to groups, yourselves along with some others have become ambassadors

for Thomas Dudley Plumbing Products. How

did that happen? How did you suddenly end up talking

Which answer do you want? Okay, any answer

Yeah, that's fine. We had a Pablo one earlier

and like I say, he was a driving force behind the guys as well. So it's

great if someone could do that. So Pablo asked if

you wanted to be a part of it. Pablo

said, do you want to become an ambassador for Thomson? This is what we're doing. I'm

Well he invited us to a factory tour to start with and

we all went down didn't we and we had a fab day. You had to listen to

me talking. met everyone, went

around the factory and seeing things in production, which

is really good. And then at the end of that we were asked

if we'd like to be ambassadors. And I think at that point, you know,

seeing what the company and, you know,

the fact that it's UK manufactured and and you

know the employing people and it's just a real good company

Yeah and you know I was just like yeah there's no doubt

Yeah I mean it's been great having you guys aboard it's I mean what did you think of

the factory? Obviously you went on the factory tour I mean. Oh yeah it's fun. Yeah

it's people's perceptions of how products come about because you know it's just a

product it's done but actually seeing how it's made and the people who actually have

I do enjoy a factory tour. I worked on the assembly line

after I'd done my plummeting, just while I was looking for a job and

making lights. So it brought a little bit of that, but no, I love it. I

love seeing start to finish and even the robots that

Yeah, it's always good when you see how technology has helped do things

or, you know, it takes, I mean, it takes machinery to pick the washes up

and moving them around. I mean, I don't think you've got to go to the foundry when you see all

the molten metal getting poured in the foundry. We've got there as well. He's always quite

a sight to behold as well. But, um, it's interesting that most

Making an absolute nightmare of it. But it's just quite amusing that

the guys out there might be sort of a bit hesitant about having females on,

but they're installing products that are mostly made by females. So it's

quite, I think it's quite one of those ironies for them if they have

any objections to it. Actually, you're installing products that are mostly made by

women. But yeah, so you enjoyed the factory

tour. Obviously the guys loved having you guys around as well, which was good. So is there anything

I think watching the ball cocks being made, we

were fascinated with that. moving

on now, and we're like, yeah, we just want to see the end bit where they put the metal in

It's crazy, isn't it, how some little things like that just sort of catch your attention. Yeah,

I want to see what happens like that. Because these are things I use every day, more like

every day, but, you know, I do use them. So to see them actually being moulded

and made and, yeah, it's really, really enjoyable. That's

I mean, it's great that, you know, we've got, like

I say, with only literally a handful of female plumbers out there to

have, you know, four or five of you as ambassadors for Thomas Udley is great

for us. And it's, I think it, hopefully we can push that out

and sort of help to communicate that out to everybody that, you know, we

value women to do what they do in the plumbing industry and we can help move

that message along in a positive way, which we think is

quite important. Yeah, we're all, from a Thomas Duddy

point of view, we're all delighted that you're all on board and it's been great having you

in the podcast for today. So, I mean, you

know, hopefully we can act as an inspiration for the next generation of plumbers that

Because I think it's important because we still go to

Installer now, I don't know if you find this, where you go up

to a stand and you might be with a couple of other males and

you're asking questions and they're not even answering to

you. Yeah, you get blanked and they talk to the men. You

know, hello, I'm Neil. I'm also a plumber, I'm also

a gas engineer. But that's probably, installer is

one of the main things that, you know, you feel it, you feel like

It's changed over the years. My first one, I think, was 2019. And

that was very male-dominated, to the point

where I think it was like, me, I think I saw maybe two other girls, that was it.

And yeah, it got to the point where I was walking around and

it was exactly the same. And then they'd be like, she's a plumber as well. Oh

yeah, they look at your badge and they're like, oh yeah, then they start interested because you're interested

in their product. And it's like, yeah, thanks for that. But I have noticed every

year there are more and more like us lot females going

round, which is so nice to see. It's really good. Yeah,

But there's still companies that blank you and just don't speak to

Yeah, it is. It's another one I cross off the list that isn't their product. It's

surprising that companies do that, because you don't want to turn away a

Yeah, I mean, it's that assumption, isn't

it, that they don't look at you and whether they just don't

think you're a plumber. Because there is other females there that are there for other reasons.

But yeah, when you're asking technical questions, you'd

Yeah I mean I have absolutely no idea about plumbing myself. I'm

in marketing, I don't understand anything about plumbing really.

It took me until I started at Tomazooli to know the difference of why does

that toilet have a handle on it and why does it have a button and what the difference was. You

know for anyone who doesn't know at home, if it's got a handle it'll

be a siphon. I'm trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about now.

And if it's a button there'll be a valve in there of some sort. When

it comes to sort of the products within the system, which is what Thomastudy really sort of

does, Thomastudy has been sort of looking

to sort of develop more products on water saving wise. Have you seen that?

I mean, especially for yourself being around, you know, 25 percent, not

that you're older, but over

the last sort of quarter of a century. I

mean, so that is used to water saving change in

that time. I mean, because when I was, you know, when you started in

87, I was leaving school. So it was, I'm joining the army. So it

was a bit different on there, but water saving was something we thought

I started in 97, not 97. I'm sorry, I'll

just age Kaz a whole decade then.

I wouldn't have to be doing it that long, you've got another 10 years on

I think we need to cut that from there, let's cut that

from the whole show, we can't really have another man in

there. Okay, so I do only have 10 years before you even thought

about becoming a plumber on there. But water saving wasn't

anything that we thought about back then. You know, I came from

a time where we had no double glazing and a coal fire

to eat the hags, no central heating or nothing. So saving water

by flushing the toilet, I mean, I think my nan had an outdoor toilet still. Or

the room where the spiders lived is what, you know, we were a bit scared to go in

there. And for some reason she didn't use toilet paper, it was newspaper. In

the outside toilet she had cut up newspaper in the outdoor toilet.

Yeah, I know, I'm showing my age now. Yeah, I

didn't earn this grade by being young. But yeah,

so have you noticed that attitudes towards savings change and how people sort

I think, yeah, I think since water meters have been put in people's houses

they are more conscious. I think

I've always been conscious, I've always been one of these people that turn the tap off. I've never

had a water meter in my house but I've always been one of these people

that turns the tap off when they're brushing their teeth. I am not. Back

to that area you were just talking about when I was a

kid. We had a telly that we had to put 50p's in to make

it work. It was a rental telly and you'd put your 50p in

and you'd spin it and you'd get so many hours. Now every

like yeah it was like when they when they come and emptied that you'd

get like bit of money back and we'd be like yay we

can watch loads of telly now because you know money was tight so you

put your 50p in and it had to last year you had to be so I think that

taught me from a young age you know turning lights off in property like

in the rooms when you're not using it and then and not

running water excessively. So I've always had that mindset. But

I think, unfortunately, that people now probably got

it because of money and the fact that they are being billed for the

water that they use. But I've changed quite a lot of toilet

flushes because of the fact that they're passing through. And

it's made the water bill go up. And they might not have even noticed it before that.

Well, I'd say because, I mean, you know, H clearly doesn't

I do. I'm already half, I feel like doing my teeth and I'm like, oh yeah,

I suppose it comes from, as you and I remember, 50 pence is,

you put 50p in the electric meter. I mean, they talk about now about if

people get their electric cut off and how bad that would be. And we used to get

cut off all the time because you'd be sitting and watching the internals, the house

would go dark. And then, oh, have you got 50p for the meter, mom? No. She

had to walk across the road, knock on your neighbor's door, Rose, have you got 50p for

the meter we can borrow? Just so we can get the electric back on again. But that

was always, like you say, when the electric man came round, that was

always bonus time because we'd add up how many 50p were there and

give you so much back. So it was like, hey, we're rich. So

yes, but in terms of saving water, how

we do it there, I mean, I didn't care. We flushed the toilet once, twice, didn't

really matter. But I suppose when looking

at it now, I suppose, I asked a couple of the guy plumbers earlier, was

fixing toilets or the toilet was leaking something that was high on the priority of

a homeowner. And they said it can be, but the

to fix another problem and they say why are you here can you have a look at the toilet because i think it's leaking

do you find that customers do that or you think they're a bit more sort of proactive now

it's varies really doesn't it i think you do get some people that

will want it sorting straight away um but

then you get other people um that you mention it to oh i've

just used your toilet i noticed it's flushing still oh yeah it's

been doing that years okay I'm not bothered about it. You

don't want to push yourself on to repair it. I can repair that if you want. We'll

leave it for a bit, yeah. We'll give you a call. You know, some people just

They're just used to the noise. Like the trickle of the night, you can just hear it. They're

I mean, the amount of water that actually gets sort of wasted, I

mean, it's, I think about 4% of the toilets are leaking any time

in the UK at once. Yeah, so I think it's about 4%. Some

water companies will say it's 25%, but the Leakyloo report said it

was about 4% to 5%. So say

4.5-5% of toilets across the UK are leaking at any one time. That's

enough water going down the toilet to fill 4.5 million

baths every day of drinking water. That's

literally flooding down the toilets. And you've

experienced people going, yeah, maybe I'll get it fixed, maybe I won't. It's

usually the valve that's leaking or the inlet valve that's leaking. Which

I think because it's not leaking outside the toilet and it's not the

pipe going in. Yeah. It's not a problem because it's just they

Yeah, I mean, I suppose with dripping taps... I'm gonna turn it tight, it

Yeah, I'll better get that fixed now. But a lot of the quarter turn ones,

I suppose maybe if the wall was leaking out, you used to have the external, I'm

gonna sound like I know what I'm talking about, I have no idea what I'm talking about by the way, but

the external sort of overflow for the toilet was leaking, it would flood outside. And

so you'd spot it quite a lot because it's dripping down the wall. Now with the

internal overflows, it just goes straight down the toilet, I suppose it's harder to

spot, at least initially for people. So I

understand there is a way you can test the toilet if it's leaking, which is

putting the toilet paper at the back of the pan. So I think if you dry the

I use a bit of blue toilet duck. If

it goes obviously clear, it's leaking. You know, you just put

the duck round and it should stay all blue. But if it starts clearing

I mean I suppose your advice would be at that point you need to get that fixed

because it's costing you hundreds of pounds a year that you don't

really see. And also wrecking the environment while

we're at it. So I mean I suppose the advice is

if you've got a leaking toilet, if you've got a leaking toilet, get it fixed. Call

in one of these two, they'll come and fix your toilet, it's the way to

go. So do sort of working with Tom Studd in the

other ambassadors, have you found that entertaining, have you found that sort of worthwhile to

Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's a good group. It's

nice because when you work for yourself and you're out there doing

your own thing, it can be quite a lonely job. So I think when

you've got little groups like that, you know, you've got little people you

can have a chat with and it just helps you get through the day really

Yeah. I'm assuming you're all very active on social media. Yeah.

I suppose that's changed a lot over the last few years, I suppose, has opened up a

Yeah, I think that's another way of having that sort of, the

workmates are such, when you're not got workmates, social media is

I suppose it has a bit of a negative effect as well because the amount of YouTube videos where,

you know, yeah, you can fix it by doing this. Try it

out yourself. Which is possibly a good

thing, maybe not. Have you come to a house where someone's actually had

It's a bit like you say, people will have a go. I hate getting them

calls though where they've had a go and they can't do it and then they want you to

like yeah I can change the tap no problem no I can't do that tap on there can you

come and tighten the tap I need you to tighten it up for me I can't do it it's

surprising how many people don't actually know how to turn the water off in

their own house though yeah that's what's yeah that's what surprises

me a lot as a plumber and you know I've been you

know you do it in your own own house when something goes wrong I've

had a couple of burst flexi pipes and I've turned the water off and

I think What would happen if that happened there? They wouldn't know

I suppose that's... people think things just work. Yeah. And

I've been guilty of this. I moved into a house. I was telling the guys earlier that

I accidentally drove through the gas pipe. He's laughing. I

can laugh now. It wasn't even funny at the time. I blame my wife completely because she

wanted a shelf put up in the kitchen next

Clearly. I didn't think that the

pipes would run from the boiler that way. I kind of, I didn't, to

No. So, first lot of screws went in, whether

by the bracket or not a problem, second one. And I was drilling, I thought, oh, there's a bit of resistance here.

push harder on the drill to get that to go in. And

as it pops in, it pops into the, through, and then I could feel this, I've

still got my finger on the drill, and I could feel this pressure behind the drill. And

as I pulled it out, it was like, whoosh of gas, and I was like, expletive-filled

moment, which I won't repeat. And then I just

shouted to my wife, get the cat and get out of the house. We'd

literally been in the place maybe three days. I

had no idea where anything was. I didn't even know where the gas was. I

had to bang on the neighbour's door saying, I've hit a gas pipe next door, you need to get out,

because we're about to blow your house up. Yeah, by the way, I'm Mark,

And then the neighbor told me where the turn off was, so when I turned it off, which was,

I dialed 999 in complete panic at that point. I

didn't know what else to call. So the gas man's coming

out, the fire engine's on its way, there's me outside. I've

turned the gas off now, I think it's all right. So the

fireman comes in, and literally there's a tiny hole where

I've drilled through. Gets his hammer out, whack, whack, whack, and makes a huge hole

in the wall and went, yeah, you've hit your gas pipe, and then left. And

then I thought, oh, that's great. So I then had to wait, the gas man came out and sealed it

up, and then I had to wait for a repairman to come out and fix that. And I ended up with a

huge hole that for the four years I was there, was always a

bit rough on the outside. I didn't quite fill it properly when I was trying to

fix it, but that's my wonderful DIY skills. So

the moral of the story is... I won't touch walls. Don't

Shelves. No, yeah, I'll put shelves up. I was going to say, you don't put any more shelves

Did the shelf not go up in the end, Paul? Well, I'm not in there anymore, do I? I

mean, I bought one of those little stud detector things. I

have no idea whether that's any good. It beeped all the time. So, okay,

I'll just close my eyes and hope for the best. But

yeah, I suppose DIY people, we can be great at doing things, but

we can also be a complete disaster when we do things as well. And you're

the people we call to come and fix our mistakes. And whether that's, you

know, it's going to cost me twice as much now because of the damage I've done. So I

suppose the moral is really, if you don't really know, get a

Thing is, it's in a pipe, anybody could do that, you know. Have you

OK, how did that happen, H?

So I didn't do the first fix in the house. It was in a radiator. They

used to use 10 mil plastic and he used to do like a loop. But

on one of them they told her to go sideways, so I was like, it's in the loop, it's

fine. I went sideways and straight in, water coming out,

and I was like, oh no. But yeah, that was not good. I had

I did go to a job where they had, in the downstairs toilet, they'd

notice some water under the radiator. and

I looked and I could see it was coming down so the

pipes were running behind the radiator and coming out behind the

radiator the plastic pipes and you could see the water was sort of

coming down there so I sort of

looked up and there's a picture up there so I took the picture off and there's a

pin and I pulled the pin out and water just sprayed out so

yeah they nailed straight through the water pipe and it was just trickling down but

yeah that was quite funny as I pulled the pin out it was like

That's one of the things you sort of see on a comedy film isn't

it? I don't know if in real life I'll ever come across that, someone's put a

pin in there. That's a brilliant story, that's

a great story, I like that one. Was it a

No, it was just a random picture that they put up, but

they told them to move it that way a little bit,

cover the hole, because I had to cut out a little bit of a

hole to get a repair in, so they then just put

Let's keep going, and next time I'll leave a bigger hole. My wife

likes moving the front room. I've talked to my wife a couple of times in these

podcasts now, she's actually gonna kill me. She likes to move the pictures around, so there's quite a

few little holes dotted around the front room where there's little pictures that have been moved around.

So can I put that there? Oh no, I've got a hole there now, I'll put someone else on there. So

plumbing is an interesting sort of trade. I

mean, it's not something that I, I mean, I've looked at, the

things I look at, what makes my life easier, flexible tap connectors,

perfect, I've fitted one of those. But I had a go

at soldering once and that was the

biggest disaster. I think I burnt my hand, I think I burnt my leg. Do

you guys do soldering? Can you do the soldering on the

pipe work? Because I think that's a skill set that I

Well obviously when I did plumbing at college I learned how to solder and

then for 22 years I didn't solder once because I

was mainly working on boilers, repairing them. I

don't do installation. So yeah, for 22 years I didn't solder.

So when I started working for myself I had to sort of teach myself to solder

again. And I've got a bit of a love-hate relationship with

solder. Sometimes I love it and it looks amazing, but I

do now press. I've got a press gun. You've

gone to the other side. Yeah, I've gone to the other side. So

yeah, I'd much prefer... Press is so

much easier, it's safer, and I prefer that now. It's

I do quite like it, yeah. I do find it's quite more of a piece of art. Is

that weird to say? But yeah, no, I do appreciate a good solder

I'm terrible at most DIY things. I mean, I can do, I

don't mind having a go, but the actual outcome is sort of hit or

miss. I mean, I remember putting a new, you

need like this in the kitchen. and I had to

put the sink in and you follow the instructions where you draw

a circle around the line, you have to take it so many mil in and I

must have stared at that for about two hours before I could

sort of have the courage to put the drill in and then start cutting it out. So

I thought if I get this wrong, that's it, it's done, I need a

Yeah, it's not easy, but I mean, I

did my old kitchen, which I was quite impressed with. It's not fared very well,

but it was quite a few years ago. But we had

our bathroom done recently and we had plumbers come in and

I'll never do anything myself again because the brilliant job

that got done was just, it made it look, you know, so much

nicer than anything I could have done. But my bathroom fell apart when they took it

apart because it's that old. But when they stripped off the tiles, literally

I think half the house came with it. Luckily I was

at work, I missed all this excitement when I came home and my wife was like, you're not going to believe the

amount of dust and stuff that came out. But the bathroom itself was like, it was, oh

my god, all I wanted was a new bathroom suite. It just looked

like a bomb had gone off in there. So I don't know

how many, if you sort of started a job that you

think is going to be sort of quite easy and then it turned into an absolute nightmare.

I mean I don't do bathroom refits or even

a boiler fitting I suppose. I tend to do the smaller jobs but

yeah you do sometimes come across it and you think it's

It was like last night, I had to go to the toilet last night and I

was like just take my hand luggage. tall bag even

and um yeah i was like it's fine i'll just nip it up it's just the

little nut and the toilet i was like that's all i had to do as soon as i

tightened it up it snapped oh the whole thing just

snapped yeah and i was like oh this is not what i wanted it'll

Yeah. What does new fit in? But yeah, it was one of those things

you just think, I only came for like 10 minutes and I was there like ages and

The thing is, I think when you do things like that, like I repair

a lot of toilets and it might be the flush valve that's faulty and the

whole cistern has to come off. But if it's a fill valve with a plastic,

um shank i know like brass every time they're a nightmare

so i replaced the fill valve as well while it's stripped down because you've

been there before where you've tried you've put it all back together tried to

get it to reseal and you spend more time messing so i'd say

to the customer i'm going to replace that as well the fill valve and put obviously

a thomstead lee obviously Yeah,

so you learn to sort of, you

know, just avoid them things coming up

because you've had it before and you've learnt from it and you do things a

I suppose it's every day's a school day when

you learn to do tips and tricks and I don't know, was it

lefty loosey, righty tighty and all those kind of things. So

I think I learned how to wire a plug up. because, you

know, blue, green, I don't know what colour they go on, so, BR, bottom

right, BL, blue, bottom left, and anything else, put it on the top. So that

That's all right if you know you're right from your left. Yeah, I

And you're not colour blind, like my dad was. He wired

up the plugs in the house, and all he'd tell us was colour blind, and we switched everything off,

it blew literally half the sockets in the house, which was

useful. Then he said, yeah, but I am colour blind. You could have said, we

could have helped you out on that, but. But yeah, so, I mean, I've... I've

got a lot of respect for plumbers because it's one of those trades that you probably

only call when you need them. Um, and then they

come and do a job for you. And then you realize actually how good people are. Um, when,

when, when they, when they're very well at doing their job, even tightening the tap

up, I struggled with tightening the taps up and the guy,

there you go. You know, I must've spent about four hours

trying to bend myself around the toilet so I could get underneath and put

the bath plug on, you know, that was an absolute, that was horrible. But is

No, I mean obviously it is a job where you have to get yourself in very

awkward positions and after 25 years my body is knackered

basically. But yeah, like awkward

baths to do taps and things, you know, awkward sinks. Taps

that are like along the wall. Yeah, you can't get

anything in. And obviously toilet

I remember when we had our bathroom done, we were trying to think

ahead, thinking what if we need to change the taps? And the guy said, look, in the end, he

said, look, don't worry about it. He said, if it goes wrong, the promer will find a

It's like when they're fitted on, like you say, on the back wall and you've

got like, there's no way I can change that without

Well that's, you know, I have this problem now because to get to the bathtubs I'm

gonna have to take the whole toilet unit out to get the board out

to get to the... and I know and we've had a floor laid while the toilet was in

Don't call me. Okay, I

You're going to go and fix one. But I know how bad that's going to be. And I'm like,

I keep saying, don't mess the taps up. Don't mess around with them

The thing is, it's like everything. You get people that install

and people that maintain. You also get people that do both. If

you do both, you're conscious of that. But if people just install and

never maintain, they don't think about the consequences of

when things break because they do.

I suppose you come across that quite a lot when you come to fix something. Yeah, definitely.

So regarding on Thomas Dudley, have you got any favourite

products that you like from Thomas Dudley's range? Anything that you were surprised that

Well, I've been using a few different products from their range.

I've got a stop tap that I'm going to fit. I was supposed to fit it

last week, but the stop tap in the road, I couldn't get to it.

It's all buried, so I've had to wait until they've had that

sorted. So, yeah, things like that, and radiator valves

that I didn't realise they did, and, you know, the good

quality stuff. I think my favourites, obviously,

it's what they do best, the toilet products, you know, I

think. The siphons and the flushes and

the fact that, you know, they've got this new bit

that you can put on the flush valve to make it more compatible without

stripping. Yeah, so I'm looking forward, I tried

it the other day but it didn't fit this particular one, but I'm looking forward to

I mean, I think terminology is a bit... Each industry is

quite unique in its terminology. You know, double flush,

single flush, outlet, inlet. It all can be a little bit confusing, but

the one that sticks in my mind the most, I mean, whether you come across this, is when we was looking at

our product range, and we had a product called a force cup. And

I'm like, what's a force cup? And I was scratching my

head for ages, and I had something, it's a plunger. For some

strange reason in this trade, it's called a force cup. And I was like, isn't

Is there anything that sticks in your mind from plumbing or heating that actually doesn't

Yeah, I'm fitting the forescope on them. But

each industry is quite unique from that. So I mean, I imagine that there's all sorts of,

Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. But I think generally,

yeah, you just, you don't really think about it because you're in the trade. You don't think

That's cool. Well, I think we've really enjoyed

having you guys on the show. It's been brilliant.

Yeah, no, it's been, it's been a pleasure to sort of, to

hear your stories and you know, the toilet, you know, the no female

toilets was something I just didn't even think about would be an issue there,

you know, and having to share the toilet with the, obviously the executive people

who wanted a nice toilet to use. But that's, it's, it's amazing

how that potentially could have been a barrier to someone actually

becoming a plumber. or an engineer, which is, you know,

really strange that that basic sort of requirement would be sort

of thing that might stop somebody. It's very, I suppose, you've got

to be quite strong-willed to battle through that.

Yeah, I think that comes with being

Yeah, especially like working on site, you can't take it to heart. If

they give it, give it back. You can't

I suppose that's a good way, you know, if they're chucking the banjo, you chuck

it back at them. And to be fair, I think they probably appreciate

I think I gained more respect on site because I gave it back rather

than just like keeping it and just walking on doing my own thing. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

That's cool. Well, but yeah, it's been a pleasure and I hope we can get

together again, because I think it's been a great. So just

to people, if you enjoyed the podcast, please like and

subscribe by pressing some weird buttons that might be around somewhere

on the screen. And you can follow Thomas Dudley on

Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and X. And you can, if you want to chuck

out your, what are they, social media handles, whatever they might be, if you want people to

pink underscore plumbing underscore HGS on Instagram.

Okay, so that's it. Thank you to my guests, Kaz and H. Easier

to get your name right this time. And just keep a

look out for the next episode of Dudley Unplugged. This is Mark Morris