Photo story - incredible.

[dennis]

Cable ties are better but you have to be an electrician to use them.

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:15:31 +0100, "John Schmitt" scrawled:

Mine doesn't, it has a huge transformer in the bottom and a timer, basically. It just throws 50V out of the side to heat the resistive wire in the joint. It is mildly more complex than that but not a great deal.

Mine needs a 3.5KVA 110V transformer to run it otherwise the cutout goes ping on the Tx!

Still is about that. My Dad was a rep for MCA Calder then left to set up Caldervale Technology. Mine's undergoing an overhaul atm and will be working again one day soon.

[Rob Summers]

Or a dodgy motor mechanic - after a recall the petrol tank on my Fiat Cinquecento was replaced and held back on by cable ties. Didn't find out until it nearly dropped off 6 months later. :(

Rob

[Lobster]

I nearly made a wonderfully witty and sarky comment about the usefulness of 45 deg bends in a pipe run; but then spotted this:

So I didn't.

David

[Lurch]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 10:42:06 +0100, "Roger R" scrawled:

That's because you are fitting them the wrong way round, you've got the in and out connections mixed up somewhere.

[Ben Blaukopf]

That's roughly what I did when I put my new kitchen in - have a photo of it somewhere. Internal gas meter sitting in a cabinet, and didn't know whether I needed to replace anything if I undid the meter couplings, or have the equipment to do a soundness test, so I demolished the cabinet around the meter, with a temporary screw inserted to dangle the meter off. Given it was all attached to well supported copper pipe, it was fine by itself, but I needed the string to lift it up a few mm. Then rebuilt the new cabinet around the meter. Top tip - when sliding the hardboard in - which is of course right against the wall, so you don't have the access to it you normally do, use a toilet plunger to keep it flat. You'll understand when you/if you do it!

That said, I'd have rigged up something a little sturdier if it had

Ben

[John Schmitt]

The one I was involved with came from either BG or Transco. It was definitely battery powered. Presumably this was for those jobs out in the sticks. Lugging a generator 400 yards from the nearest drivable bit of land is a drag, I can assure you.

John Schmitt

[Aidan]

Lots of BG/Transco gas meters are suspended from the gas pipes without any other means of support. Usually supported by one of the gas pipes, since one usually has a flexi connector. The one in my last house was like this. BG denied, at great length, that they would install meters without supports. On moving to my current house I queried the meter-with-no-supports; they said it had been installed to the relevant standards.

And CORGI hope to stop DIYers working on gas?

[Chris J Dixon]

Which reminds me in a roundabout way about those flame-belching industrial heaters looking very much like horizontal rockets.

Imagine a power station, whose 500 MW alternators are cooled by internal circulation of hydrogen, and liberally plastered with "No Smoking" signs. Nearby picture CEGB security bloke, warming his cockles on just such a heater. I didn't linger.

Chris

[Matt]

But when you have sparking sliprings on the exciter just a few feet away you realise that the no smoking thing is probably a waste of time! ..........although seeing the results of a major generator failure (a rotor bar came loose) followed by an oil and hydrogen fire with flames that reached the roof of the turbine hall was pretty scary :-)

[Ed Sirett]

Gas pipes have to be fire resistant for obvious reasons above ground.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But since they specify soldered joints - how long would a pipe under pressure survive in a fire?

[dennis]

Copper will resist fire for a good five minutes or so (on a good day).

[Andrew Mawson]

ground.

I had a major fire in one of my Launderettes in April and was most impressed how the flexible stainless steel gas feeds to the driers stood up. These were (originally!) yellow plastic covered 1/2" bore (8 off) fed by a length of 2" 'black iron' down the back of the machines. The flames of the burning 'back office' were channelled behind the driers for a good half hour perhaps longer and thank goodness none of the gas services 'gave way'. In the same fire lengths of 28mm copper soldered with Yorkshire fittings and full of water initially unsoldered and sagged. The other thing that resisted impressively was a partition made of 12mm Sterling board (Oriented Strand Board) on 4"x2" studding - it was only lightly charred despite total devastation in the room - in fact it was on this wall that the

28mm pipe was mounted !

AWEM

[Doctor Drivel]

They don't.

[Doctor Drivel]

Was there a high temp fusable link to cut off the gas supply? Was the OSB skimmed?

[Roger R]

copper

degree.

usefulness

Thanks for spotting that. Its just a choice of terminology, whether the diversion is 45 degrees from the straight ahead or the included angle in the bend of 135. I suspect the included angle is more common.

Roger

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You really shouldn't comment on things you don't understand.

[Doctor Drivel]

you should go back to playing draughts.

[:::Jerry::::]

If you know anyone who has access to the film / programme archives of the OU there is (or was...) a programme all about testing high pressure plastic gas pipes (from the early '80's IIRC), not only it the jointing process explained but also the way samples of pipe are pressure tested to destruction. They also showed a film explaining the design and testing of electricity destitution pylons, twisting the pylon until a component failure....