CORGI essential for DIY gas work?

Don't know about the legal position but I considered this before I fitted my own boiler and went ahead anyway. ISTR that if you're involved in a car accident and have no MOT that is not enough for the insurance to refuse to pay ( I could be wrong here! ). They must prove that the car accident was caused by a defect that the MOT would have found. Inother words, I expect your insurance will only be void if it was your installation that was defective, since by definition, if you screw up, you aren't competent.

How sure are you of your competence? My background is not gas-fitting but as an electronic engineer I reckoned I had enough nous to take on the job. If you do it, make sure you do your reseach, i.e. correct positionig of boiler, ditto for flue, leak testing with a u-tube manometer ( following the prescribed procedure as listed , I think, somewhere on uk.d-i-y by Ed Sirrett ), leak testing with the appropriate fluid ( not squeezy for corrosion concerns I think ), mking good solder joints ( the secret IMO is to scour both the pipe AND the inside of the fitting before soldering with flux ), removing excess flux to discourage corrosion, making sure the gas pipe is only passed through a cavity wall whilst being in a length of plastic pipe ( sealed to the pipe at the appropriate end ), to prevent a gas leak blowing your walls apart, making sure your boiler is wired to the appropriate regs ( DP isolation switch, thermostat in new installations etc ), and so on and so forth. It's pretty much all on the web somewhere, a good diy book helps with things, as does the boiler installation instructions. It's your call.

Andy

Reply to
andrewpreece
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Im interested in this point that someone (sorry not sure of name) raised.

I gather that technically, if I'm comptent, which I believe I am, I can fit my own boiler, even though I'm not CORGI registered or formally trained.

But ... if a fault developed in my gas fitting, and the house burned down, and the insurance company refused to pay out, and it went to court, I don't think the judge would accept my assertion that I'm competent.

- So the insurance wouldn't have to pay out.

So I think that although it may be legal to do my own gas work. So effectively my work would not be covered by my house insurance policy.

Anyone agree or disagree?

Tony

Reply to
TonyJeffs

Your competency will be assessed by someone else in such circumstances, so your view will be irrelevant. If you could show a 10 year career of successful professional gas installations from satisfied customers with documentation (for example) you might be able to persuade those others that you were a "competent person" without CORGI registration. Otherwise "competency" will be *defined* by CORGI registration because those others say so. This is "competency" in legal terms and CORGI registration may not mean you are any good at doing the work and vice versa. Unfortunately competency in legal terms is all that counts in terms of your scenario.

You may well feel (correctly, even) morally happy that you are as competent to do the work as any CORGI registered person, but that means diddly squat to anyone else.

Reply to
Bob Mannix

Well, the insurance company would have to provide expert advice as to why and how it wasn't competent, since if it went to court you'd be suing them. And presumably had advice that it wasn't your fault?

That's what they do.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

But the law defines "competent" when doing work for reward as effectively being a CORGI. Had the law intended to restrict "competent" to CORGI for private DIY as well, then it wouldn't have put the "for reward only" clause on the CORGI requirement.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

The law (by which I mean the Gas (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998) does not mention (as far as I can see) the term "for reward". It does say:

"No person shall carry out any work in relation to a gas fitting or gas storage vessel unless he is competent to do so".

(Part B, 3 -(1))

My point was that, without a lot of documentation, this will be

*interpreted* as meaning "...unless he is CORGI registered.
Reply to
Bob Mannix

The CORGI requirement is in the following paragraph: "no employer shall allow any of his employees to carry out any work in relation to a gas fitting or service pipework and no self-employed person shall carry out any such work, unless the employer or self-employed person, as the case may be, is a member of a class of persons approved for the time being by the Health and Safety Executive for the purposes of this paragraph." which clearly applies to work done by an employee, ie done "for reward"

Reply to
John Armstrong

But subsection (3) is the bit that defines the CORGI requirement for companies.

3) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraphs (1) and (2) above and subject to paragraph (4) below, no employer shall allow any of his employees to carry out any work in relation to a gas fitting or service pipework and no self-employed person shall carry out any such work, unless the employer or self-employed person, as the case may be, is a member of a class of persons approved for the time being by the Health and Safety Executive for the purposes of this paragraph.
Reply to
Christian McArdle

This is true but irrelevant.

-We are talking about DIY, so the paragraph on employer/employee does not apply.

-The paragraph I quoted, saying "No person shall carry out......unless competent to do so" does apply.

-Christian's point about a "for reward" clause is incorrect (insofar as it might exempt DIY work), as the words don't exist and are only implied in a paragraph not applying to DIY.

-The words are quite clear - the only bit of interpretation I did was where the powers that be require a definition of "competent person" for *any* person doing gas work. They are free to define this in the courts and will, undoubtedly, use the definition "CORGI registered" unless there is other compelling documentary evidence the person has available (history, equivalent registration from another country or whatever).

Reply to
Bob Mannix

No, section 3 of Part B deals with "Qualification and Supervision", which includes qualification for all (including, but not limited to, company employees) and supervision of employees. That's why it says "Qualification and Supervision" at the top!

Reply to
Bob Mannix

They are clear. You must be competent.

Later, employed and self-employed people must be covered by CORGI. As this is not extended to all people, then the implication is that the legislation intends that CORGI registration is NOT required to comply with the law for those that are neither employed or self employed. If the law had intended that all work was covered by CORGI, then paragraph 3 would have stated this.

However, paragraph 1 still applies. This requires you to be competent, which the courts are likely to define as having sufficient knowledge to join CORGI, even if you hadn't actually done so.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

I didn't mean that "for reward" was part of the legislation, just a shorthand. They use the term "employer or self-employed person".

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

legislation

I am glad we agree on the legislation at least! You are correct that the legislation does not require CORGI registration (I never said it did). Where we differ is in your last paragraph. Anyone who thinks the courts are going to waste time testing competency is living in a dream world! They will take the easy way out and (at the risk of repeating myself) accept CORGI registration or other well documented evidence (I believe the last most reluctantly), which is what I said in the first place! They will not accept someone's own opinion of themself or the statement "I have always done this work and nothing's blown up yet" (or words to that effect).

We all may deplore the march of legislation - I am not saying how I would like it to be but how I think it is.

Reply to
Bob Mannix

It is very simple. Let's translate legalese to English.

(1) Fitter must be competent. (3) If done by a company or self-employed person, must be CORGI member.

The fact that p(3) is there and doesn't apply to all people implies that the law does not intend to mean that DIY gas fitters must explicitly be a member of CORGI, just that they need to be competent. It is possible to be competent without paying hundreds of pounds to a rip off medieval guild.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

"Qualification

see other reply - precis: "I never said it did"!

Reply to
Bob Mannix

Agreed...

Reply to
tarquinlinbin

I asked my own insurers (NFU Mutual) about diy work in general on the house, and they said that I would be covered for pretty much anything I did providing that I had "Accidental Damage" cover on the buildings, and that I hadn't deliberately intended to damage anything!

The example they gave was, if I removed a load bearing wall without realising it was a load bearing wall and the house subsequently collapsed, then it would be covered, but only if I had accidental damage cover.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Read

The guidance notes in the printed version make it clear that they are not ruling out d-i-y or do-it-for-a-relative/friend, but every 'operative' must be comptetant to the extent of the job in hand.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

burned

buildings,

Many posters here seem to believe that being a Corgi member, would be some demonstration of competence in a court. I am fairly sure, that if a house blew up and killed someone, the investigation wouldn't conclude that as the installer was a member of Corgi then it couldn't be their fault.

Having just discovered that a Corgi installer drilled through my kitchen ring main (puncturing the neutral wire fortunately) I, for one am not convinced of their competence.

However, in my dealings with Insurance companies, I have tended to find that they will generally avoid paying out if possible! so they might well pull this stunt.

Reply to
deckertim

In message , Bob Mannix writes

There are very few CORGI reg'd fitters I'd even let through my front door.

Reply to
raden

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