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

the heart of plumbing. Okay,

welcome back to another episode of Dudley Unplugged. Today we're going to be talking all

things plumbing. We've got a couple of well-known social media

influencing plumbers with us. I'm your host, Mark Morris, and we

are joined by... Gavin Plumley, a.k.a. Pablo

Plumkabar, who I'm sure is going to spend 10 minutes explaining why

he uses that name. And Liam the Plumber, well, Liam,

a.k.a. Liam the Plumber. I should have got that the other way around. He'll

need a lot less time to explain why he's Liam the Plumber, as his name's Liam, which I'm sure he obviously

And he's a plumber, which kind of handles in there. So is that how you sort of came up

Yeah, it just works. I'm a plumber, name's Liam

White. I haven't got a business, so I just keep it as Liam the

It's kind of like Robocop, isn't it? Robocop, you

Yeah, yeah. If you have your own business, then you

might call it, I don't know, I don't know, Woods Plumbing or something, but

I haven't got my own business, I keep it to Liam, the plumber. I consider you the Robocop of

What, you mean he got smashed up completely and someone had to rebuild him from nothing? Exactly

that, yes. Have

you seen Robocop? Do you get the reference name? No, I've

not seen Robocop. Wasted on you then. Pablo,

So I've been

a plumber 18 years this year, so

I've always done a lot of call-outs, emergencies, when I worked in housing and stuff

like that, so I was always out of hours. Emergency

call-out and that sort of side of things is

known to be expensive. So you've got to pay someone on

an emergency call out, plumber, electrician, whatever the

field. You've got to pay a lot of money. So one

of my mates was joking one day and he said, it was

in the middle of winter, freezing cold. He said, you've

been out a lot. I went, yeah, out all weekend. you may get

money like Pablo Escobar. And then it turned into Pablo

It's catchy. So yeah, so Pablo suits you perfectly. In

case you don't know anyone out there, Pablo's got a load of stickers that he sticks around everywhere he

goes. I've got a nice collection of them on my desk at work. How many have you got now, stickers?

The sheep one, the little angry lamb. That's a

pretty prevalent one. Keith, his name is. But the latest... Only

Pabs one is, yeah, someone ended up sticking

that on a toilet somewhere. Nice. When we was away together,

the three of us, remember? At the Installer Show last year. Oh,

yes, I remember. Someone went and put that in the ladies' toilet. Pabs

was here, that's why you want to put it on there. So, yeah, it could

That's what she said. One

of the questions I was thinking about, obviously I've known you guys a little while now, is how did you actually

So, my family are all tradesmen. So,

hands on, right from the get go, from, you know, as soon as I could walk,

it was picking up a hammer, chisel, hand saw, it's dangerous. Don't

do that at home, people. But, always into

fixing things, building things, taking things apart, and not being able to put that together again.

So, working in a family trade. No, no, I'm

good now. But I,

just natural progression, it was get yourself into

a trade, Liam. I had no interest in

electrics or something like that. Carpentry, I've always been interested

in, but plumbing I just fell into as my older brother's a plumber, so I kind of followed him,

looked up to him when I was growing up. So I went into plumbing and that's how it started.

But I can put things back together now, just for the record. Absolutely.

I did various jobs. Originally I

wanted to join the armed forces. That was what

I wanted to do, armed forces or police force. I was very healthy, very

physically active as a youngster. So that

was the route I was going to go down. And

then a chance meeting with a friend of mine who had just come back off

tour and his last tour was horrific, really horrific.

So I had a choice then of, I had the opportunity to go and

train, to become a plumber, to further my training or

join the military. And I, after that chance meeting with my friend, I

Interesting. I mean, like I said, my dad was in the army,

so I joined the army, so that scores you. You do tend to follow what's in a family footsteps

It's very rare you find someone that has, I don't know, a

family that does, I don't know, accountancy, and then they go into something completely

different. You normally follow the same path. It is rare, but it is

My father was a steelworker. Okay. But

a very good carpenter, my father. Are you good at carpentry? No.

I hope there's any answer to that one

There's got to be one incident that sticks in your mind from those years.

Definitely. Should I explain it? So, it was within the

past two years, and it's probably the worst thing that's probably ever happened to me on a

job. So, I had two days to fit

a downstairs toilet and basin, rip off the tiles, retile it,

and then replace two radiators in this house. I had two days to do it. I

did everything in the cloakroom on the first day, easy, no problems,

done by three o'clock. And I thought, oh, I'm only 10 minutes up the road from the house.

I might as well be a bit proactive rather than reactive and let's, I

don't know, let's fit the radiators for tomorrow. So all I've got

to do is drain the system and connect it up. So

I did hang the rads, and I thought, I've got a little bit more time, do

you know what, let's dig the floor up, because it's a concrete floor, and let's

expose the pipework so I haven't got to do that tomorrow. So

It's always a week to go, isn't it? Right at the end of the day.

And this is about half past three in the afternoon. So the saying goes, if you

fill up after three, you'll be late home for tea. I

went on the left-hand side of this rad, on the flow side, dug

up the pipework, and I could see it was a one-pipe system. So

it comes across, tees up, and obviously carries on. Now,

I thought, I didn't think any more of it, and I carried on digging up the right-hand side,

and exposed part of the pipework, and I thought, I need a

bit more room on this side. So I dug up

a little bit more, and the one-pipe system looped

back and where it looped back was right where

the point of the SDS bit went straight through. So I had probably,

what was I, it's ground floor and it was a three-story house, so it's probably, I

don't know, two bar, three bar of pressure, something like that. This

heating system was sludge, it was black, and this

room that I was in, this hallway, was pristine painted. I

can see where this is going. It was mustard yellow behind

the rad, white ceiling, mustard yellow on the return wall behind me. Bear in mind

that's three meters away. This water, as soon as I went through

it with the SDS bit, went straight up that wall, hit the ceiling, and ended up on

the reverse wall behind. I stood and stared

at it and went, what do I do? The customer came

out with, again, a pristine white towel to put over

it, stemmed the water, and then water went off. And

yeah, I had to drain the entire house and had to rectify the

pipe work so I could go home. In

the end, I ended up piping up the radiator and doing the other one and staying until about nine

o'clock at night, I think, doing it. So, yeah, lesson learned. Don't dig

up floors after three o'clock in the afternoon. But

the customer was all right with the paint. They were fine with it. They were like, yeah, don't worry, we'll repaint it.

We're repainting anyway. Yeah, it's brand new anyway, so it's Farrow

& Ball paint, so it's expensive. Oh, expensive. Yeah,

It was very soft. It was very, very soft. But they were so

understanding. They were like, not your

fault. I wasn't expecting it to loop back. I was thinking it

I won't be doing it again. Gav, how about you? Well,

so I worked in social housing for a long time. Liam, you've

experienced the wonders of social housing. So

there's some very dark moments, very dark things that

I've experienced, but we'll leave those for another day. There's also some very good ones though,

you meet some incredible people. And that's the bonus of it, social housing, is

that you just meet amazing people. But the one

that stands out the most is We're doing

a project, a refurb, so new kitchen, new bathroom. So

we went into the house. The lady was tiny, four foot

two, she's tiny. But

she was like, cut her own hair and stuff, so it was wild.

She went in through the kitchen, or tried to get in through the kitchen, and

the house, all the corridors in the house, floor to ceiling in

dolls. Dolls? Yeah, you had to turn sideways to walk through

the house. Full-size dolls? Yeah, just boxes of dolls.

They're her babies. She was literally like, these are my babies.

I was like, right, okay. I think I've seen this film. And

that's what it was like, but the whole house was like that. Every room you went into, everywhere

you walked, floor to ceiling in dolls. And that's the one that really

stands out because she was like, You know, she cut her

own hair and stuff, and her husband was in the south of

France at the time, in their villa, I think she said,

in the south of France. And I was like, do you keep dolls there as well? And

she sort of, yeah, you don't mention the dolls. Don't speak about the

Yeah, it's one of the weirdest situations I'd ever been in. But, like,

really funny. Like, equally frightening and funny

at the same time. That sounds terrifying to me, yeah. Yeah, it

I don't know, it'll be worse. Find out that she's got one of those, someone's got a big

tank full of spiders or something, each one of those, or it had

Snakes loose in the house once. People had gone,

they'd moved out of the house and there was two snakes

missing. I got pictures, I actually have pictures of that as

In the house? Yeah, they were still there. And where were they? In one of

Yeah, yeah. Oh really? Yeah, they just appeared from back out

of the baths and stuff. Were they like big things or...? Yeah, one was

like this, it was apparently a baby. Like a picture

with a snake. It was really cool. So

I was like, was it venomous? I didn't actually think of that at

the time. Someone went, oh look, there's a snake. Oh cool,

give me it. Especially with social media now, it's

just, let's have a picture of everything. If it's not

That sounds terrifying to be honest for me. Yeah, wouldn't be for me that. I

mean, I've done DIY around and I've never managed to flood anywhere, but

I did drill through a gas pipe once. Nicely done.

Yeah, it was. I mean, it was a pretty good job, I thought. My wife wanted a shelf up in

it. We just moved in the house literally two days. And she wanted a shelf up

in the kitchen. And it was next to the boiler. You're blaming the wife? Well, if

she hadn't have asked for the shelf, it would have been fine. He's blaming you. I'm

not blaming him. It's not anything to do

with the wife. So I didn't understand what a pipe said. So the boiler was there. So

I marked the shelf, got it nice and straight, put the first hole in

for the first bracket, not a problem. Second one, first hole, okay. Bit

of... There's a bit of friction here. I thought I'm just

going to push through it being as it is. I really went in. As

I'm with the drill bit going, I can feel this pressure behind the drill. I'm like, what

is that? As it came out, all the gas shut out. I was like, because

I had no idea where the stopcock was for the gas. I

just went. with some expletives added, I won't say now, but

I said, I've hit the gas pipe. He said, grab the cat and get out. That's

the way to bang on the neighbor's door. I've just hit the gas pipe, you know, I'm

trying not to blow your house up. I'm really sorry, nice to meet you by the way. And then called

the gas and then the fire brigade came out, by which point I managed to find and

turn the gas off. But a fire brigade came out, took one

look at the hole, and then the hole was literally the size of a drill bit. They then smashed

a big hole in it and went, yeah, hit the gas pipe, and

then left. I mean, I could have done without

having the huge hole in the wall, but. Was it a new build? Well,

What's your natural reaction? If you hear a gasp pop in a wall, what's your natural reaction?

Can we bleep explicitly? It

would be, because I know people who've done, like, I know a guy who was

a sparky and he was calling out for flu

and stuff through a wall. So he was calling out for his

electrical cables, like life, you know, proper mains coming through

in flats. So he was calling out, and he went out and called through the

main gas supply on the outside, feeding the

flats. So that was like 32 mil gas main run. They, like,

evacuated the entire block of flats. There's no way of taking that off. No,

no. Well, it's out in the street there, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. So that's, it's down to, that's like a

Transco job. Yeah. You know, Wales and West, or whoever, Gasport. But,

like, no, if you, you, like, now, now, for us now,

because we're so long into it, Like hitting a pipe now is, oh, a

It's like, oh, I've hit a pipe, oh, I've hit a pipe. You're more annoyed with yourself that

you've hit a pipe than the fact that there's a... You might blow up and destroy

everything. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if it's going to blow, oh, it's going to blow, it's going to blow. Yeah.

It's a natural reaction to be shocked by. You don't

react the same as what you're used to. I think I was shocked when I don't expect

it. When I expect a problem... You expect to drill through a pipe. No,

I'm not saying you expect to drill through a pipe. But when

someone's put pipe work in a wall for a radiator, for example, I first fixed

it, you think the brackets have got to go where the pipes are. Let's hope

I don't drill through. So if you drill through, you're thinking, am I going to hit the pipes? Do

We assume a lot of stuff. You should never assume. You should never make assumptions in

any trade, in our trade especially. You assume, right, the pipes are going to be there, I'm

just going to put my brakes here, it's going to be fine. But

If you half expect it, yeah, you half expect it

Yeah, I think you have to be. I mean, I suppose, I

mean, Leon, in the last sort of 15, 18 years, things have changed

a lot. Massively. With you guys in there, not just how you handle a job, but

how actually the industry's changed. So, is there anything, I mean,

I'll let you do the technology bit. I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

So when you say the technology bit, what bit, when? All

So we're plumbers. Yeah. So let's refer

it to, okay, water conservation and savings, because

Right, so one of the most common things we get called out to as plumbers is

always leaking toilets. Right, one of the first things. And

it's always guaranteed to be the flush valve, the siphon, whatever

it is, okay, always leaking into the pan. 15 years ago,

you wouldn't have had the resources to go online to find

the spare that you needed. Now you've You can do it and bits

turn up either same day, following day, two days, whatever. So you can

sort it. 15 years ago, that probably wasn't a thing. So

if you had an old flush valve, push

button, for example, where do I get the bits for that from? And

it would be a case of strip the toilet down, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now it's

Do you know what I mean? External warnings as well. Like, I mean, you

remember like originally like going to jobs and you'd have overflows pouring

outside the house. Yeah, I remember that. And people would be ringing

you, like, oh, we've got water pouring outside the house. How long has it been going? Oh, it's

The thing, yeah, like now people are more on

top of it. Yeah, they are. They are more on top of that kind of thing now, to be fair, especially,

especially when things don't seem quite right. Um, and

I think the big thing is, is, um, with

a lot of people, I don't know about where you are in Wales, but a lot of where I am in Sussex, a

lot of people are on water meters. So when they get their bill through from Southern

water, Southeast water, wherever it is, it's why's my bill higher. The

first thing they do is find a plumber and go, I think we've got a leak. And

Yeah, I suppose when they see it in the financial terms, they're more likely to actually get it

done. I mean, if you're waiting to look for the signs of a leak, you might not actually

pick it up because it can be quite subtle in terms of where it's leaking, especially.

Yeah, that's how I'd say. Not so much the

industry's changed, but I think just how

the general public

perception has changed. Yeah, I

Litreage changes? Because we've got massive litreage changes now within

toilets compared to what original 11 litre

flushes. and now we're down to six, and

Okay, so I mean, so have

things changed in the industry a lot, right? When you go to some houses,

I still come across low-level systems, high-level systems, I

have customers come up to me and go, are the new push-button ones, close-coupled,

any good? Do they give the same? oomph. It's the

word oomph that people still use. And I go, yes,

they do. But I personally find

the low level, high level stuff so easy to work on. Reliable, you

know, tried, trusted. If that's what people have had in their homes for

a long time, then that's what they'll stick with. So I think

trying to get people away from, in that scenario, the low level, high

level stuff into a close couple thing can be a bit tricky. Do

you get what I mean? Whereas some people quite like the look of close-coupled,

neat, compact, hidden away, concealed stuff. Even though it's still, in

theory, low-level, it's out of the way. How can we make it as neat as

possible? That kind of thing. But it's still this imbalance,

if you know what I mean. Not everyone's going the same route. So

No, no, no, I agree with that. People are still very much that way, divided

on that. If I could, I'd still, me personally,

this is just personal preference, I still prefer

a high-level system. Yeah, a massive, you know, I don't

think that too high for me You're literally like that looking into

the top of them because you can't actually see You're

doing it blind. But in terms of engineering

aspects then, the basic idea of

a high-level system, which relied on gravity and

volume of order to flush it, now is engineered to

be a lot smaller, a lot more compact within a

I think the other thing as well is we have a lot of products now

made by obviously Dudley, other companies that are

real high quality. However, there are still some products made

by imports, which are inferior on

they are just not suitable for the UK market.

In my opinion, don't know about you, but some stuff, a lot of the stuff that comes with

supplied toilets, you know, from your high street brand,

I genuinely throw that straight in the bin, and I know it's a

Dudley Unplugged podcast, but I genuinely fit Thomas Dudley products. Tried,

Yeah, it's your reputation in the end as well, isn't it? Because, you know, people

don't want to... If the toilet leaks, they blame you. If you've fitted

a toilet and it's leaking, I'm going to blame you for it, not the manufacturer of

So for you, it's reputation, isn't it? The thing is, as installers now,

we just want to fit the best

possible products that are out there. we don't want to have

to go back to a job that we fitted or that did two

weeks ago because it's gone wrong, it's leaking, that's the worst thing, it's a callback.

It's terrible. You do get them on the odd little thing, but

that's neither here nor there, but you don't want to

have to go back for something so basic that, oh, the brand new toilet you fitted doesn't

Do you find that with the birth of the internet and YouTube

and everything that general public are more inclined to look inside

the system and try and fix it themselves before calling? Or is it still that I'm

Yeah. Because the world is so informed now in every

aspect. So because you have, I mean, everyone was

like, you know, that was the saying, wasn't it? The phrase, I'll just Google it.

So everyone Googles it, and then you have the influx of social media,

YouTube and everything. So the information is readily available. So

people will contact you and go, oh, this

isn't working. They'll start with, this isn't working. And then as the conversation

goes on it'll be, oh well I had a look on YouTube, alright so you've messed

That'd be me, not wanting to admit that I've actually had a little bit

of a play in there and I've actually made it

I snapped a bit off, I was sort of squirting out the ceiling. You

do get a lot of that now because people are a lot more informed. they have that

I mean, I'm always, it's weird because I'm probably more

likely to change an electric socket or a switch than

I am to mess around with the water. I don't know why, because I mean, if the

water goes, it's leaking. If I mess around with electric, I could kill myself. But I'm

Water is very much a visual representation though, isn't it? Yeah, I

suppose. Electric, you can't see it. It's like gas. You can smell it, but you don't see

it. And that's the difference. People fear

water and fire. You burn to death or

you drown. And that's an inherent fear.

So a lot of people won't touch anything. They'll just,

you know, wisely so. We try and inform people as much as possible, right?

Do you know where the stop tap is in your house? Do you know where isolation valves are in your house? If

you've got control, then that's everything. Shut the water down,

control the water, control the flow of water. Stem the flow.

Or just don't touch it. I

mean, ultimately, I personally don't mind homeowners having

a go. But if you have a go, and

it's going to cost you more money because you've done something else

that then has broken it even further, for example,

then don't be surprised if the bill is higher. It

goes higher. Yeah, that

for me is probably the thing. Don't buy products for us. Yeah,

yeah, don't buy products from eBay or Amazon. Yeah, and they say can you fit

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't, it's counterproductive. It's massively counterproductive.

We, I mean, we're qualified plumbers, so, and,

you know, we are governed by rules and regulations as qualified plumbers,

so we have to fit things that are approved for use

So, yeah. So is it, I

mean, when I've got you, you have a little sort of little helping hands a little bit

that said sort of like, you

know, if you were tightening up something lefty-loosey, righty-tighty, or if you were... They

still teach that in college. They still teach that in college, do they? But if you're doing, like, winding a

plug up, I remember, if you're not sure how to do it, so you have a brown wire, so

it'd be bottom right, blue, bottom left, anything else, put it on the top. Is there any

Shit runs downhill. I

like that one. That's actually when they tell you shit runs down hill. Shit runs down hill

on payday's Friday. It was the first one. Yeah, that was the first

tee. Lefty loosey is such a common one. Now in plumbing, right,

so in plumbing terms, right, so handy tips, hints, that

sort of thing. Now there's millions of them if

you're going into the realm of trying to fix, repair something. Personally,

I would say know where your stop tap is. That's

the first thing you need to know in your house is you need to know

how to control the water in your house. And how to get to it. Yeah. If you can't,

don't touch anything because that is your lifeline. So

you need to know where your stop tab is. You need to know how

to shut it down. And that

Jen, so you've recently become ambassadors for Thomas Dudley Plumbing Products. How

First off, I just want to say what

an absolute privilege it is. I don't just say

it for me, I say it for you, every other person that's involved. How

many of us is there now? 10? 10, 11 of us? forget.

There's quite a lot of us now. And

we all we all genuinely are very, very privileged to be part of the

most iconic toilet fill

flush company there is. For

me, when we started, I'll get on to how it all came about in a second, but

it was overwhelming as to how much Dudley do, it's

not just Phil and Flush, is it? It's so much more

to that. But how it came about was all thanks to this

gentleman right here. If it wasn't for his outreach,

outgoing-ness to message one of the reps,

we wouldn't be sat here today, and we probably wouldn't be as

good of mates as we are actually. We probably wouldn't even know each other, I think, if

I'm being honest. We just fell in love with you. We need

some sort of romantic music now don't we? I'm

We did have a very romantic meal. We did yeah. Off the record. It

all came about because when you were outgoing, you put yourself out

there, you put your neck on the line and just made a

jump and just... A leap of faith. A

leap of faith. It led into 10 of

us meeting originally. Yes. We did the factory

tour, which was, again, unbelievable. And

then we all became ambassadors, people came

and go, etc. The chorus stayed and we've

now got the girls on board as well. Yes. Which is amazing.

And we've recently had some other people

in from YouTube and TikTok as well. So we're trying to give other

people the opportunity to experience and

To see what we've seen and to

Yeah, so none of us take

it for granted. We're very, very humbled by the

opportunity, but no one forgets out of the group, everyone

in the group knows where it started and it's

stamped into everybody. It all started from this man's initial interaction.

I'll say his name with Lee. Give Lee a shout out

Lee Randall. Yeah, he's an amazing guy. He's a good friend, a really good

Does a lot for us. And if it wasn't, like

I say, for you two starting off, then none of this would

be possible. And obviously, me doing other bits and pieces for another company,

I'm able to get Dissident in, hence the reason for why the podcast has

started. You know, it's all just a

I mean, from a company's point of view, obviously, we've loved having you

guys on board. It's been quite an eye-opener, actually, to see

how much you know and how much you don't know about what Thomas Dudley does, because we're

a company that probably makes the same mistake that every company makes, is we just assume that you

all know what we do. And nine times out of ten, that's completely

wrong. So there's always surprises. I mean,

like I say, when you did your factory tour, I imagine you walked around and couldn't believe

that, I mean, perhaps actually had a go on the production line, which was quite amusing and

You actually lost a ton of money that day. It

cost them quite a lot. But it's not

just the staple turbo 88 that's made. Everyone

knows. Every plumber in the UK will know what a turbo 88 is. You'll know what a hydroflow

is. You'll know what the slim lines are. You'll know all the systems, whatever. But

it's the basing mates is the new thing. It's,

for example, for me, it's seen on the commercial stuff, the industrial stuff, it's like

the manhole covers, you walk over them in the paint on

And I think it's probably one of the only ones that's left in the UK now. Yeah.

And again, because it's not just plumbing stuff, because you've got the foundry, you

make the Monopoly pieces for Monopoly boards, you make the

seats for Wembley Stadium, Yeah. Yeah.

So there's so much more than just plumbing

products that Thomas Dudley do. Um, but I think with every plumber in the UK,

Dudley is, is associated with the turbo. That's what it's,

Every plumber in the UK knows Thomas Dudley. They know

that 100%. It's not, it's, it's ingrained. It's

so iconic. It's so steeped in history. And this was kind

of the whole point then when it started was that Being

an ambassador for Thomas Dudley is an honour. I

tell everyone that, it's an honour and it really is. We

all do, we take it so seriously. Because

you're representing a company, a brand that is so steeped

in history, that is so iconic in our industry. You

stand tall, you're an ambassador for Thomas Dudley. Is there a

greater, and we've had this discussion, if

you were to be an ambassador for someone, there is no greater name that

It's part of our

To put it into perspective, the Turbo was made,

produced, developed before I was even born. To

carry that legacy on, It's an honor. And

obviously, new generations coming through, picking up on what Thomas Dudley

is. You know, you go into the merchants, you see the stuff, you're familiar with

the brand, the colors. And with the socials now,

people coming into the trade later on in life, you know, just starting out, whatever,

can associate with all of us. And they'll

pick the products up and go, oh, Pablo fits that. Oh, Liam fits that. Oh,

so-and-so fits that. it's just helping bring

that awareness out and obviously it all started from, never forget

this, I've told you this, it all started from that initial interaction. And

We saw some of the interaction you guys had, when you

were on our stand at the Installer Show last year, and a lot of guys

came on the stand specifically to see you guys. It wasn't about, they

didn't come to see us, they came to see you guys, which was like, again, because

of the way social media works, we were all like, wow, that's just amazing. You

know, obviously they wanted to come and see us, clearly, because, well, they wanted to come see me,

obviously. But it's that sense of, the

way things have changed when we talked earlier about how things have changed I think social media

has probably changed a lot as well because people look

to other plumbers for inspiration and I think we see that

and you guys have you know you inspire the next generation of plumbers

to come along which is a brilliant thing to see and you know you've introduced other

people to potentially become ambassadors for Thomas Dudley and so it's all a

really great sort of interaction that we all have. And we love having you guys

around. It's actually brilliant. I mean, days like today, come out, we just have

a nice chat, talk about things, you know, we're all sort of become quite friendly with how

everything is. And, you know, it's an honor for us and

a privilege to have you guys actually representing our brand out with

I mean, we do it, we all try and do it in the most professional, way.

You do? Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I try and do it in a professional way.

Yeah, I try and do it in a professional way. But the thing is, is we can

be on a stand. So we're on the stand this year again, aren't we? So

Yeah, I'm on day two on the Wednesday. And I

can't wait, because people are going to come up, try and beat us

on the little challenges and that kind of thing. Stan's always

got a great vibe around it, gets to meet all you guys. And

we just get, we do just get so many people come up and just want pictures, want

So we can, we have the option, the fun, where

we can, we literally just have parts, we can just strip them apart, do what we

want with them, break them, we can do everything with them. So we

get, and that's part of why we do social media, and part of being an

ambassador, and then this is why it runs into Installer Show, is

that because you get all these groups around friends, and sort

of extended groups that you meet, they come along, you go,

right, come here, now I can show you this, now you're a friend of me, you can go, right, This

is how this, we're stripping it apart in seconds. Just

as a challenge, just to, you know, can you beat me in

But it's also informative. I mean, installer last

year, do you remember how there was the turbos and the

turbo-edged, literally all the bits were just flung about. They

were complete and they were compact at the start of the day, but at the end of the

day, there's bits just dotted about everywhere. It was like when I did FX

Chelsea, there was the valve mate just, everywhere on the

stand you couldn't find a complete valve mate you're going oh I need that bit

I need that bit I need that bit whatever it was just bits everywhere um it's

good fun to bring people in and to have that to

have that fun having a go having a go yeah and just get like

When I was an apprentice, right, so the bloke used to say to me, just

have a go. There's nothing you break that I can't fix. And

now we're in that situation where, especially when

we're at the shows and we're having a laugh and we're showing the new products and different

things. There's nothing you break that I can't, literally, there's nothing you break that I can't

fix. We know how to strip them down. We know how to put all the pieces back

together. And it's, so it's not just a laugh, it's

not just a bit of fun, it's a learning curve as well, especially for

apprentices, people starting out. But it's showing, again, it's

showing the quality of Tom's study products, which is why we're ambassadors. We

choose to be ambassadors, not just because it's an honour, it's

the fact that we believe in the product, which

I mean, outside of the, obviously everyone knows the Turbo 88. Is there one other product that

you really like or you were really surprised that actually we did, that you didn't, had

I saw you made some of my gas products. I mean, we don't really know that we're

Yeah, I mean, with the heat inside and different gas products, a

lot of the fit-ins products, you know, there was variations in

which you would go, yeah, like, there's brass fit-ins there.

I had no idea you do brass fit-ins. And I generally didn't know that. I was like, brass

fit-ins. You do ball valves. And it would be common sense to think then

that, oh, yeah, there's going to be other products in line with that because you've got brass ball

valves. But you don't. I just didn't. I didn't think.

And then, like, when we went into the factory tour and when we got sort

of welcomed in then into the fold and

to find out then, hang on a minute, there's thousands of products here that

are shipped worldwide because you've

got the spec for the Caribbean and different places. And it was

like, that's insane. And then, but it's not

just the products that you make that we

fit and use, like fill and flush. valves, there's

There is tool-related stuff. I think for me, the one

product I didn't know you made, and

it's as simple as it's the washer boxes. You go into the merchants

and the washer boxes are there, but it's like you don't

associate that with Thomas Dudley initially. And it's like, hang on a minute, and

there you go. And it was things like that. And then non-plumbing

Yeah, from one of our founders. There's all

sorts of things. I mean, the drain covers, the cat's eyes as well for the road

studs. There's a whole host of products that Thomas Dudley as

a wider entity does that people wouldn't have any clue. So,

it's always surprising when we take people around and you see the pods that are in our showroom and people

say, oh, I didn't know he did that. I didn't know he did that water fit that makes the

pipes under the ground. It's such a wide variety of

products. We cover almost every angle, but people don't really appreciate, actually,

the size of the business. Because they, over

the years, have kind of got... Turbo 88 is what they've got, sort of thing. That's what

Dudley's are, it's a Turbo 88. Actually, it's a lot more than that with their other brands.

So, it's great that you guys have actually seen that.

And, sort of, obviously, you tell everyone that we do this, and it's...

It's amazing when you talk to people, I didn't know you did that, I didn't know you did that. I think, yeah, well

that's part of our job is to make sure we get that message across to everybody.

Is there any sort of, looking at the next generation

of plumbers that come along, is there any sort of tips, any sort

of what you'd recommend that they do, any sort of,

if you were starting out in the plumbers, what would you want to know now that you didn't know

Off the top of my head right now, you

can interrupt me in a second, but I think one piece of advice I would give to

a newcomer, someone starting out in the trade, whatever age, is

if you're working with someone, ask the questions all the time. Be

repetitive in asking the questions. What does this do? What does that do? How does that work?

Where does this go? Et cetera, et cetera. How do I do this? Ask

the questions. I wasn't shy of asking the questions. I

remember asking, I think, when I started, probably about 10 times, a

dozen times, how to hang a radiator. I couldn't do it. It's the most basic thing

now to me. But when you're starting out, I don't know how to mark

it out and fit it to the wall. You don't know. So ask the questions. That's

I think that's important, is that the asking the questions is massively

important. There's no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid answers.

And that's massively important. For me, it was

about putting your hands on it, getting involved. Don't

stand back. As an apprentice, you can stand back and observe.

You can observe all day, but it's not going to help you. Literally

push your boss out of the way and say, right, how do I do this? Put

yourself in the situation, don't be afraid. The person that you're

training with, that you're watching, that is helping you, knows

how to do it. So just put

Be more forward. It's no point. There's no point in being a

gopher getting tools out the van Yeah, if you're if

you're someone that's been in a job for two years and all you're doing is carrying tools

in out the van Then I'd reconsider what you're doing. Yeah

And that's and that's how you'd always remember it and the thing is is when you Get

to the point that your person you're working with is that's how you'll treat your

apprentice. Yeah, and When I was an apprentice, I

was encouraged to just get on with it. I never really

went and got stuff from the van. Might be the odd thing here and now, but of course it's

expected. But I don't treat my apprentice now that

way. I let him do the job, and

I'm the one that goes and gets the bits and pieces from the van. That's

the way it works. If you go for in, then

Yeah, you've got to get in there. You've got to put yourself in a position to

There's not enough of

that, is there? Every plumber

has caused a leak. Every plumber has done

a sealant. Every plumber has put their foot through a sealant. Any

Don't fear that. It's

going to happen. you're better off getting used

to the fact that, okay, that is going to happen. Let's just get in there, get

involved. And like we said, water control is everything. You

One thing I was always told was if plumbing was easy, everyone would

B&Q did an advert once. They

did an advert once. And it was literally

them saying, oh, plumbing's easy nowadays, anyone can do it. And

they were showing PushFit, a certain brand of

PushFit pipes, which is the one thing that we

constantly have to go out and repair, because they die

and fall apart and blow up and disappear and disintegrate. Plumbing's

easy, yeah. Not easy when it's three o'clock in the morning, it's

all gone wrong, and you're panicking in your kitchen when water's pouring through

So that would be one message, yeah. If plumbing was easy, everyone would be doing it. So yeah, don't

think it's going to be an easy ride, because it's not. It's rewarding. It

is good. Has its ups and downs, like any job, any

trade, any career. It's physically demanding. I

I love being a plumber. Yeah, yeah. When you were starting off,

did you get tricks played on you? So I mean, when I was recruiting the army, I

was asked to go down to the sergeant major's office and ask for the key to the indoor hand grenade range.

Yeah, or, yes. Yeah, I know, yeah. Yeah, you

think about now the guy or go and ask for the key to the parade square

You know this big square in the middle of nowhere Can you go get the key to the parade square a troop off

down and the sergeant major would look at you and go, right? Okay, you deserve to go to

jail for the next four hours So he would march you off down the guardroom and

you don't know bull in the floor with wild wolf for a few hours for being so stupid But

did I mean there's always that going and get for a long ways it was there any trick Did you

Well, no, they would, you'd have, for me it was time limits. They

would go, like I'd be in the middle of doing a semi-pipe and they would literally go,

right, 10, nine, eight, and

I'd be going, what, what, what? And I'd be like that, panicking,

and they would literally turn the water on, and I'd be getting shot in the face with it, it

would go everywhere. because it was just how

they could get away with things. I mean, apprentices get it. It's a lot different now.

It's a lot different now, the culture within the industry. You're

No, no, no, you're not. No,

you're not. Perhaps. Apparently

it's illegal. I mean, going

did the trick thing. I remember seeing once it was not so much a trick. It's

more like a mind game. This was working

with some guys and we had this apprentice. I didn't do this. I wasn't involved

in this, but the guy went got one of the plumbers and he stood over this

young lad who sold him. And they both stood old stood over this

young lad. He's a soldier and he looked are we allowed to tell the story? Yeah And

they looked over him. He's a soldier. He looked up stop the torch looked up

when right like yeah carry on No, they're both carry on staying over

Finished the the joint wiped over night Wouldn't do

it like that and he went well what I've done wrong, and they just literally walked out

left him, right? So he's thinking what

I've like what have I done, and I walked in I went you're right He said yeah, what was I'm wrong.

I went it looks alright to me Anyway, it was fine. It

was just a mind game thing. I mean, yeah,

I wouldn't be doing it to someone, but it's like... Even now, when someone's watching

over you and you're soldering, even now it's still off-putting. Yo,

Yeah, my wife will, if I'm doing DIY, if I'm struggling with

something and I just want a little bit of space because I'm not sure how to fix it,

that's usually the point my wife can be like, everything alright? Or I'll go,

We get it with customers, you know, clients, they'll stand over you

I can walk in at the worst possible time. I had one the other week where I was cutting

heating pipes in the ceiling and the water, you know the feeling, right? Water's running down your

arm, it runs down your sleeve and it drips out the bottom of your t-shirt. It

was at that point and she walked in and she went, are you getting all right Liam? I'm

like... Yeah, yeah, fine. It's the most uncomfortable feeling in

the whole world and I don't want to have to stand there and have a conversation about what's

going wrong. Well, nothing's going wrong, but I'm cutting pipework, so of

course it's not a great time, but you know, it can

I had an old gentleman sit on the toilet while I was repairing it. Not

use it, but actually came in, his name was Raj,

lovely bloke, and he came in and I

used to do this in my country. I went, cool, do you

want to have a go? And he was like, I haven't got the tools. I went, I

have. He went, oh, no, no, you get

on with it. I was like, okay, you get that a lot. Oh, I

could do it, but, oh well. And I'll always go,

yeah. But yeah, he literally sat on the toilet while I was, like

the system's there, toilet's there, I'm to the side of it, I'm

going to repair it, and he sat down on the toilet. And I

felt, I don't know, I felt. Uncomfortable. I felt invaded, yeah.

Uncomfortable, awkward. Yeah, it was like, he literally sat

on the toilet. Like looking at me then, like that. It

was, yeah, so it was a quick swipe, it was lucky, it

was just a quick change. So it was just stripping apart, one

out, one in. Did it back out and then turned it

back on. Oh, I could have done that. Yeah, but

I could have run the London Marathon, but you know, I don't want to show everyone up.

I mean, a lot of things have changed over the years. I mean, if you look at Japan and

the toilets they have over there. I mean, we have sort of hands-free sort

Sort of any of the really smart ones? I've seen one of those electric things.

You sit on it and it does everything for you. I've seen one, and it's been

nothing but a problem ever since it was installed. We didn't install it, we

Again, there's a lot of stuff that is introduced into this country which is

not fit for our standards, it's not fit for

the UK industry, because we are very strict in a

lot of things we do, and for very good reason. I

think, I do find hands-free infrared flushes

and stuff like that, I think they're great, personally. I think within,

because Thomas Dudley do one, and I fitted them myself, so the

Wave 3 especially, for disabled adaptions and

things like that, I think they're fantastic. Because people who have rheumatoid arthritis,

people, general disabilities, that sort of thing, so yes, I

think there is a niche and a market for it, and I think that

I do like that, but You can sometimes just

over-engineer things and take out, ruin

the simplicity of what makes it good. Atomic Steady have

a lot of products which are, it's their

simplicity which makes them so good. like

the Quantum now, that

again, so you add the Turbo 88, an absolutely

legendary, iconic item. When that came out, that

changed the industry, and it did. And I

remember that was one of the first products I came across, which

is how I was more introduced to Thomas Dudley when I started. So,

now, like, being part of that evolution now, to,

I'm at this stage, I'm now an ambassador for Thomas Dudley, like,

we're one of the first people to see this quantum, which I actually took apart

And he put it back together again. I

didn't have a guy yet. We'll have a guy later.

But, I know how to strip one, repair it, put it back

together, if anything ever goes wrong with it. I

mean, I can't, like, that's, for me, like

a lot of people, you know, in different sides of

it, heating engineers, stuff like that, gas engineers. But

I am now in the position where I've evolved

in that time to become an ambassador, to see these things now

being created is incredible. And

that's something now that I'll carry for the rest of my life.

Excellent. I think we're about out of time, so I

just wanted to thank you both for coming. I think it's

been a great chat and hopefully we'll

do another one another time, which has been great. So just

Yeah, it's great for us to sort

of meet the people who use our products because you

guys know how to use them, how to install them. I don't think you've even got involved with

some of our... design team to steer

them a little bit on the products that they do, which is always really helpful.

Thank you for your time, it's been a great. Thank

you for joining us on this episode of Dudley Unplugged. If you

enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe, hit the buttons below, around, wherever

they are on the screen, and stay tuned for our next