The importance of taking plumbing courses has been highlighted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
Speaking after a plumber was prosecuted for installing gas boilers without the proper training, HSE inspector Sue Matthews explained that such equipment can be very dangerous.
She stressed that only those engineers who have completed the necessary plumbing courses should carry out work on this type of device, since it is difficult and involves a level of specialist information.
"When unregistered workers try to bypass the law in this way they are not only putting themselves at risk of prosecution ... they are also putting their customers' lives at risk," Ms Matthews said.
The plumber in question, Michael Gallimore, carried out the illegal work between 2008 and 2009 in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk and Norfolk.
In addition to being qualified to do such work, technicians may find that training to be a plumber allows them to become their own boss, as Sammy Parry-Welson told the Free Press recently.
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