OT: British Gas going over the top with boiler safety diagnosis?

[Guy King]

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

How long's the old boiler got?

[Mathew Newton]

Well there's goes the plan to show her this thread as some reassurance!

Mathew :-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

;-)

Hope she's not reading this.

[Ed Sirett]

We now have (until I'm arrested - and my ISP receives an injunction) BS

5440-1:2000 in the public domain. See link below.

We can see that for this class of flue we need either 1500mm horizontal clearance or 600mm above the apex.

In this case the dormer window may well be less than 1500mm horizontally in which case the terminal (the lowest point of the outlet slots) must be

600mm above the dormer roof.

The regs used to be drawn up so that steep pitched and shallow pitched rooves were considered differently now there is a more restrictive definition of 1500mm horizontally. This would mean that all but the very shallowest rooves no longer comply.

Provided the flue was in perfect working order the I would have thought NTCS (not to current standards) was about right. Any hint of a problem though and something stronger is called for.

[Ed Sirett]

AFAIK this can be done. I am sometimes approached with a view to this. My first comment is usually, I'm reluctant to overturn someone else's opinion who may have spotted something I've missed.

In some cases it is simply a matter of giving the appliance a very good overhaul or even correcting an installation fault that has been there for a very long time.

The chance that I would rescind a notice without actually doing substantial remedial work is very small.

I suppose that you could have some legal redress over BG/Servowarm etc. but you would have to get in your own expert opinion and frankly there is not enough 'value' in the matter to drive the legal process in this area, (Thank God).

[Ed Sirett]

That's the older pre-2000 version of BS 5440-1.

[Owain]

Ed Sirett wrote: Gas Fitting Standards Docs here:

Have you any way of seeing how many downloads it gets?

Owain

[Richard Faulkner]

In message , Hugh Jampton writes

BG have been money grabbing cowboy conmen for many years, and appearances on Watchdog make no difference whatsoever.

[Richard Faulkner]

In message , Mathew Newton writes

The moment British Gas start to talk about selling you something, you are being ripped off.

I hope that your mum is able to thank them for their help, clear them off the premises, and get someone small, local, and reputable to advise further.

[John Cartmell]

If they have sales in mind whilst they make decisions on the safety of your installation then you are being ripped off from the start. ;-(

[Mathew Newton]

Excellent stuff - that is very useful. As you discuss in your other thread I don't mind having to abide by the law but I don't want my only version of what the law is to have come via a salesman at British Gas - they may of course be right but how do I know?

As mentioned in the FAQ the distinction between AR and NTCS is not set in stone however I will ask them to justify the reasoning behind them concluding the former as opposed to the latter.

Cheers,

Mathew

[Ed Sirett]

On Thu, 11 May 2006 22:18:22 +0100, Owain wrote:

This is the tail of the statistics file.

Tue May 9 2006, 173 Requests, totalling 9 MB / 123 Requests, totalling 4 MB /sitefiles/ 16 Requests, totalling 0 MB /HNTphotos/ 30 Requests, totalling 4 MB /cat/ 4 Requests, totalling 0 MB Wed May 10 2006, 104 Requests, totalling 4 MB / 96 Requests, totalling 3 MB /sitefiles/ 6 Requests, totalling 0 MB /HNTphotos/ 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /cat/ 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB Thu May 11 2006, 199 Requests, totalling 28 MB / 120 Requests, totalling 4 MB /sitefiles/ 29 Requests, totalling 0 MB /cat/ 10 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 1 MB /GasFittingStandards 1 Requests, totalling 0 MB

I dunno why the line get repeated so much.

We are a long way of the nearly 4000 requests per day and the 500MB/day that the HowNotTo photos got when they were first up.

This shows that pics of it being done wrong are far more innteresting that how to do it right!

[meow2222]

you planning to defend on the basis of 'limited public domain'?

NT

[sars1979]

If there are any asbestos issues with BG and boilers, etc, its always worth contacting Asbestos Watchdog

to see if they can diffuse the asbestos situation. You may find the BG guys are referring asbestos to surveyors who will then refer to asbestos removal companies who will hugely overcharge you to get boilers taken out (often unecessarily too). Worth checking you're not being ripped off first.

[Mathew J. Newton]

I'm 'happy' to say that the MIL's situation has pretty much been resolved.

British Gas sent yet another engineer out, however this time he was one of the senior 'inspector' types (even had a PhD, dunno what in though) who was like a breath of fresh air. I knew as soon as I met him we were going to get treated fairly - he had a certain something (bar the doctorate!) that the monkey's before him certainly didn't!

Anyway, he assessed the installation and agreed that whilst the flue terminal was close to the roof structure it was not AR per se but more a NTCS. However, he did perform a smoke test, something the previous lot hadn't done, and found some seapage from the flue above the garage. This, he concluded, did justify an AR however he let on that some fire cement would sort this out (apparently BG wouldn't touch the flue so we'd have to do it ourselves / get someone in but that's fine).

Hence, ultimately, it did deserve an AR but not for the reasons stated. He nodded knowingly at my dissatisfaction about the MIL being pressured into getting boiler quotes - indeed his look said it all - he didn't have to say anything that might otherwise get him into trouble.

He echoed what many of you said about it coming towards the end of its useful life however we can now at least assess the future of it without the pressure of BG.

Anyway, thanks again to all who commented - your support was most appreciated.

Mathew