Moving home soon.
Need to disconnect two gas appliances - a cooker and a gas fire. The gas company told me I can do it myself, simply turn of the gas supply at the mains and disconnect the appliances. Let the room venitalte afterwards to allow remant gas in the pipes to clear.
I can do it easily enough, but is it legal?
(obviously I will pay for a registered gas engineer to install the appliances at the new address)
DIY disconnection is legal.
.....
Well if you start by asking the Gas Co. but then get a different answer by asking complete strangers here I would have thought it best to go down the pub and enquire there because someone is bound to have an opinion, then you will have a decider - two out of three. No need to have anything in writing, go ahead and take a hack saw to the gas pipe confident that your research has been thorough.
Tim W
One of the applicances (gas fire) has a screw down connector that has a rubber/silicone compresion gasket to ensure a seal.
As far as I am aware neither appliance has a self sealing coupling. However, I shall check before attempting anything.
Thank you for the clear feedback.
If you do then make sure that they are left clearly labeled.
Back again, you should be able to gain access to your gas meter and in the box there you will find a fairly large turn c*ck; turn it off before you start and again label it to say there are appliances removed.
Someone did that a few years ago.
He was sent to jail for doing so after the new owners turned the gas on and were injured in the resulting blast..
Pointing to a letter telling you to break the law would be no defence. Actually, I find it very hard to imagine a gas company would give any advice at all, except get a Gas Safe/Corgi to come and do it.
There's no reason the OP should believe me over the others, and I'm not a gas engineer. However, if I've sewn the seeds of doubt in the OP's mind, that's all I can do.
rubber/silicone compresion
That sounds like a gas restrictor valve. It's not meant to be a DIY connector, but it's quite common to disconnect at that point. You remove the top cap screw, then close off the screw valve inside, and then replace the top cap screw. This normally seems to be regarded as properly capped off, as tools are required to reopen it. Check the valve is fully sealed off as described below.
Cookers often have a flexible hose with a self-sealing baynet connector fixed to the wall. You are allowed to disconnect that. You'll get a little whiff of gas which comes out of the hose. Using a wet soapy finger, draw a bubble across the baynet socket after you've unplugged the cooker hose, and make sure it isn't growing due to the connector seal not sealing. Sometimes these don't seal perfectly first time, and you may be able to make it seal by pressing your finger in the end to momentarily to open and then reseal the connector. If that still doesn't work, turn off the gas and call a Gas Safe (Corgi in NI) plumber to replace the connector, or to remove and cap it if you aren't going to use it again.
Note that cookers sometimes have a flexible hose which is permanently attached at both ends too, so it may not have a baynet connector.
s/baynet/bayonet/ sigh...
I can't fint the original blanking plug, so I'll get an engineer in, just to be on the safe side.
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