A gas portfolio is finished when the evidence is complete, not when a certain number of weeks have passed. A portfolio normally works out at around 20 to 30 jobs, so the real question is how quickly you can get in front of that work.
The exact evidence you need depends on the requirements that apply to your programme and the paperwork issued through your training centre.
What those jobs usually cover
- Boiler installations
- Boiler services
- Boiler repairs
- Tightness tests
- Cooker installations
- Identifying At Risk (AR) and Immediately Dangerous (ID) situations
Jobs are not the same as visits
Those are job types, not separate visits. A single visit often produces evidence for more than one of them, which is why the number of days you need is usually lower than the number of jobs suggests.
A service and a repair carried out on the same visit are two jobs. If that same visit turns up an At Risk situation, that is a third piece of evidence from one doorstep. This is the single biggest difference between a portfolio that takes a fortnight of work and one that takes eight months.
How long it takes with us
Roughly two weeks of on-site work, with the exact length depending on what your review says you still need. We aim for three to five suitable jobs a day, on live domestic work in and around London.
The on-site days do not have to run back to back. They can be fitted around a job you are already working.
We meet, go through your portfolio together, and work out how many jobs you still need and how long it is going to take. Until that has happened, anyone quoting you a finish date is guessing.
What you need to bring
You do not need your own tools, PPE or insurance. Bring your portfolio folder, or whatever your training centre has given you setting out the requirements. Bring it even if it is incomplete, or you are not sure what half of it means — working that out is part of the review.
What makes it take longer
Three things, in the order they cost people the most time:
- Not combining jobs. This is the big one. A boiler service and a repair carried out on the same visit are two jobs, not one. If that visit also turns up an At Risk situation, that is a third piece of evidence from the same doorstep. Trainees who treat every requirement as its own separate visit end up needing two or three times as many days as they actually need.
- Not enough work to go round. Some engineers do not have the volume of jobs to fill a portfolio, or they do not take the trainee along to enough of the ones they do have. Either way the portfolio stalls, and it is usually months before anyone admits it is not working.
- Being kept on as free labour. A trainee who is useful on site is worth keeping on site. Some arrangements drag on for exactly that reason: the work keeps getting done and the sign-off keeps not happening. If the end date keeps moving and nobody can tell you what evidence is still outstanding, that is the sign.
A realistic way to think about it
Count the jobs you still need rather than the weeks you have been at it. Work out how many of them could come from a single visit if the evidence were planned properly. That number, divided by the jobs you can actually get to in a day, is your answer — and it is usually far smaller than the months people have already spent waiting for work to come up.