Schluters NEW Advanced wet room course.

[Old Mod]

As the title suggests, Schluter have just unveiled their new advanced wet room course at their training centre in Coalville Leicestershire.
Myself, @andy tiler, @Localtiler, and a few others who were unable to attend, were invited to trial their new course over the last couple of days.
The actual course goes live at the beginning of 2019, and at a predicted cost of £99.
To be honest, for the amount of information that you come away with, and for amount hands on experience you receive, the cost is insignificant.
Realistically you couldn’t even put a value on it, and if you could, it would run in to many hundreds of pounds just to even cover the cost of the brand new materials that you use.
List includes
Plaster board,
Kerdi 200 membrane,
8/9 12.5mm Kerdi Boards,
3/4 50mm Kerdi Boards,
Performed Kerdi Niche,
Kerdi Fix,
Kerdi Keba tapes,
Kerdi Coll L, the new extended pot life adhesive.
Full sized Schluter Linear shower tray,
Ditra Heat matting and cable,
And their relative new LED bathroom lighting system Liprotec.

This course is full on, within 90 mins of arrival you’re led to their new workshop area and you’re straight in to the practical side of the course, it’s then non stop until 3.30 - 4pm the following day.
You’re presented with 3 stud only walls, full height one end, dwarf walls at the other.
Plasterboard and Kerdi Boards need to be cut to size and fixed with the appropriate fixings.
Pre made niche fitted and full height partition wall constructed from 50mm Kerdi board.
Kerdi 200 membrane installed over the plasterboard.
Shower seating created from 50mm Kerdi Board.
Installation of Schluter Linear tray includes fixing supporting batons on to joists and reducing the size of the tray to suit the preformed space in the floor.
Fitting of Ditra Heat matting and installation of the cabling.
Then at the shower end all transitions are sealed and taped with the new extended pot life Kedrdi Coll L (and yes the pot life has actually been improved)
The installation of the Liprotec LED lighting system.
Think you’ll agree, this is a full on and complete training session, and is well worth attending.

Andrew Curry (head of training)
and Ian (schluters residents Tiler)
are extremely knowledgeable and seem to be able to answer any question you throw at them, furthermore they are great guys and make the whole experience fun from start to finish.
Along the way you also get to meet many of the Schluter staff, all the way from the very top, down.
Even Joachim Backes (MD Schluter U.K.) was there to greet us and also joined us for lunch.
The complete Schluter team are very friendly and always willing to share their time and explain all the different aspects of the company, nothing seems too much trouble.
Personally I think the effort that has gone in to this presentation is second to none.
Thank you @Schlüter-Systems Ltd

There’s only one stipulation that they make before attending, and that is that you have already completed the introductory wet room course first. And it’s easy to see why, you need some kind of knowledge prior to attending the course, otherwise you would just not have time to complete it, and time would be eaten away by product familiarisation first.

It’s an excellent addition to their already comprehensive training programme.
Thank you for the experience guys, and thank you to Carl Stokes, Head of Marketing, for taking time out of his schedule to meet with me and discuss increasing the level of interaction between Schluter and the forum, working toward, not only to an increased presence, but also to see an increase of information posted directly in to threads as opposed to being told
“contact the technical office”
Which in some circumstances, will still happen, especially if the scenario being enquired about is not the norm.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and would recommend it in a heart beat.
A big thank you to all those involved.

 

[LM]

Excellent post Marc, it certainly looks like a course well worth attending. In our game I struggle to think of a better way to invest £99.

 

[Old Mod]

Excellent post Marc, it certainly looks like a course well worth attending. In our game I struggle to think of a better way to invest £99.

It’s a steal mate, for sure.
I think it’s just a token amount designed to encourage only the serious.

 

[hmtiling]

I need to be getting involved.

 

[Flintstone]

I think you you’ve hit the nail on the head with that post Marc, a great couple of days, it’s more than enough to give a competent tiler the confidence to prepare a wet room with the schluter range of products and as you said, Andrew and Ian can answer any question you can throw at them. It’s a great opportunity to grow your knowledge and skills, for a tiny amount of money. Brilliant !

 

[martin1c]

I normally don't like the idea of paying companies to get trained to use their products. This does sound like you get to actually try out a lot of expensive products as well as learn about them. Seems like a good deal for £99

 

[GoneGuy]

Brilliant post and review, I’m looking forward when I’m up there next month

 

[Schlüter-Systems Ltd]

Thanks Marc, and Andy for the feedback and I appreciate you taking the time to share you're experiences with the rest of the forum.

We also learnt a lot from those that attended and will be tweaking a few things to make the day more enjoyable and to allow the "open conversation" type of environment that we all benefit from to discuss your experiences, questions and the industry in general.

Thanks again

Carl

 

[Waluigi]

Nice post, 3fall

Very tempted by this course. It’s a shame I very rarely spec Schlüter for wet rooms It’s a bit high end for me. I use Kerdi Membrane now and again though.

 

[Old Mod]

Nice post, 3fall

Very tempted by this course. It’s a shame I very rarely spec Schlüter for wet rooms It’s a bit high end for me. I use Kerdi Membrane now and again though.

You might actually be surprised at the cost of certain elements Andy.
They do wet room kits now, starting I believe at sub £400 and that includes tray, membrane, banding and adhesives etc.
Maybe look at what you can get them for and decide from there.
The regular course is only one day and you travel up afternoon before for a 9am start, and covers the kits. The practical is still a large part of your day, only on a smaller scale.