Landlords gas safety certificate - Boiler safe but 'not to current standard'?

[Jason Arthurs]

I've just had a landlords gas safety certificate sent to me for a house I own and last year everything passed with flying colours.

This year despite not testing the cooker for some reason, and failing the gas fire in the front room because he couldn't find the gas tap (follow the pipe idiot) the inspector concluded that the boiler was 'not to current standard'. A covering letter states:

No heat shield, close to corner (and no mention is made of the flue).

This is the only explanation offered. The boiler is located outside of the main house in what was formerly a coal shed, it is quite close to the ceiling (concrete) and probably about 3ins from one wall (brickwork).

Naturally if the remedy is simple I'd like to get a clean bill of health on my gas appliances. So what qualifies as a heat shield?

Not that this particular boiler (Worcester 350 room sealed flue) ever seemed to heat anything but the water it was intended to, the outer housing never seemed much above ambient temperature.

Another slightly puzzling thing is that despite testing the flue of the boiler and it passing both the spillage test and flue flow test he has put the visual condition of flue as a 'fail'. The external flue on this boiler looks in good repair but being on the wall which receives the most rain (this house is in Wales :-) it has gone a little rusty, but only cosmetically.

I'm about to fire off a letter to British Gas, asking them why they didn't test the cooker (they did last year) and why their engineer was incapable of following the pipe to the gas tap in the living room (duh?). If the heatshield is something that can be done quickly, then I'll get one fitted and get someone to polish the chrome of the flue until it looks a little nicer :-)

Have the standards changed significantly in the past year, or did I just get a picky CORGI inspector?

Regards, Jason.

[BigWallop]

You got an inspector that had got out of bed on the wrong side that morning, by the sounds of it. As far as I'm aware, a room sealed boiler doesn't need to have heat shielding installed on any of the nearby structural walls or ceilings, and it sure doesn't need a shiny flue pipe to be doing its job properly. There is no mention of the casing leaking anything into the room, or that the inspectors worries of heat transfer to the surrounding environment was of concern to him, so he should have chosen his wording better by explaining why thermal shielding is needed.

I think a complaint and a request for another inspection, preferably supervised, is in order. Stand your ground, that man. :-))

[Owain]

"Jason Arthurs" wrote | This year despite not testing the cooker for some reason, and failing | the gas fire in the front room because he couldn't find the gas tap | (follow the pipe idiot) ... | did I just get a picky CORGI inspector?

"picky" isn't the word I'd use. Twp might be closer.

As he didn't test the cooker the inspection is useless for your purposes, so he can come back and do it again anyway.

Owain

[PoP]

Several years ago my wife and I entertained the idea of having an annual service plan for our central heating system, from British Gas.

Gas engineer duly arrived, took a look around, then advised that we couldn't have the service plan. The reason given was that the central heating boiler had a vent to the outside world on the back of the garage. This was about 6 ft off the ground, but engineer said that it failed the test in so far that it was possible to stick something in there.

We apparently needed a wire guard installed around this vent.

Needless to say, we did without the service plan as it seemed like a pointless expense. For the sake of the cost of the wire grill BG could have supplied and fitted one free of charge and been quids in on the deal over the next few years.

PoP

[IMM]

A gas hob requires a isolation tap under. Not sure about a complete cooker.

[Fishter]

The gas tap mentioned in the OP pertained to the gas fire, not the gas hob.

[Jason Arthurs]

Yes, we had an ornamental surround put on the fire the pipe goes into the surround and on the side there is a small access hole to allow you to turn off the gas. Unfortunately the guy doing the inspection didn't see a tap and obviously didn't bother looking very hard.

We now have a nice 'Do Not Remove' notice on our perfectly working gas fire because of a sloppy CORGI inspection.

Regards Jason.

[NJF]

We had the reverse, an additional fine mesh had been added to stop the leaf fall blocking the air inlet sections of the terminal (balanced flue), this was removed and following the annual price rise so was the contract, by us. The inlet part of the flue needs cleaning out by disassembly every year without that mesh, but gas co. fitters (they are NOT engineers) don't do that...

Niel.

[Ed Sirett]

All gas appliancers require an isolator for maintenance.

[Ed Sirett]

You got one that was both picky and negligent. The cooker is part of the installation - it needs to be tested/inspected. A lot of background info is in the FAQ. It is possible that there is some irregularity withg the flue which wouldnot be acceptable today but was when the flue was fitted. Draw your own conclusions.

[IMM]

This doesn't mean it fails the test.

[Ed Sirett]

NCS - Not to Current Standards is only advisory - therefore it passes but not with flying colours IYSWIM.

[IMM]

A pass is a pass. It could be a an E or an A+. Still a pass.

[dg]

NCS is a crap phrase and causes unnecessary alarm with customers

You could fit a brand new item one week, test it the next and it may not be to current standard.

You could also have perfectly safe and excellent installations, have caused no problems for years, but as soon as someone writes NCS on the certificate, then the customer immediatly thinks there is a major problem.

The number claims I see, relating to reports (not just gas related) that have this "not to current standards" on, is bloody annoying :-<

dg

[IMM]

[Ed Sirett]

Agreed NCS is and extra level of confusion and guess which company _loves_ using that as a marketing strategy.

The gas regs are updated (liek the elctrical, building regs etc.etc.) from time to time any applinace fitted _correctly_ last week will be good this week.

[Ed Sirett]

Yep and it's not a fail.

[John Stumbles]

---8 > A gas hob requires a isolation tap under. Not sure about a complete cooker.

... but AIUI a bayonet connector counts as an isolator

-- John Stumbles

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