When a safety issue is identified, often a new regulation is devised. Almost always it is not retrospective.
This seems to lead the brain dead here to think that just because they see something, that this is the current practice. EG Newer gas installations are safer than the practice of only twenty years ago by a factor of around ten. Due to new regulations concerning installation. But it's not economic to rip out every existing gas installation.
If you want to upgrade it's up to you and nobody else. You have to man up and make a decision. Save the money or take the risk.
The same applies to electrical installations, motor cars, building construction, virtually every technology.
We also seem to have half wits who only want to hear certain things. ie, if i's going to cost/doesn't suit, they are deaf/that can't be right.
And others whose reading/comprehension skills are pretty abysmal, ie when confronted with a simple paragraph are unable make sense of it.
Especially if its full of typos like mine, and words missing like yours.
I found a wonderful lighting doubler here. Its a Y adaptor BC lamp holder with a bayonet bulb connector on the other end. you simply plug it into a ceiling light and dangle two bulbs off it. Simple! Brian
Are you posting for your own benefit harry? Or are you hoping that the success of the book series "for dummies" will somehow rub off?
Given your past record of ill informed posts, perhaps it would be wise to spend less time accusing fellow posters of being "brain dead" and spend a little more effort not appearing so yourself.
The second socket was so you could plug the iron in and do your ironing in the light (in the days when you had one downstairs socket and one upstairs one). It also worked for the electric fire so at night you could read in the light.
The gas explosions we see from time to time arise from gas accumulations that wouldn't occur in up to date installations (ie ventilation requirements.)
And the brain dead blocking ventilation holes. (As recommended by half wits on this forum).
If all installations were up to modern standards, gas explosions would be virtually unknown.
Just as fires caused by electrical faults would be virtually unknown if all electrical installation/equipment was up to modern standards.
But converting everything immediately isn't possible.
We didn't scrap all Minor 1000s when dual circuit brakes came in.
How do those vary significantly from the The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1994 or The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1984?
The point I am making is that you appear to wildly hand waving, blowing about lots of hot air, without actually having any clue about the subject you are mouthing off about.
You have claimed that there have been (what must be far reaching and substantial) changes in the last 20 years that have made domestic gas installations carried out now to current standards an astonishing *ten* times safer than those compliment with regulations 20 years ago.
Sorry but my bullshit meter is bleeping so loud I am worried it will blow a fuse!
Hence, in case there is something you know that I have missed, I am offering you the chance to actually educate, rather than gesticulate.
You have not defined what you mean by "safer". Please do. Back it up with a link to evidence.
For example, show us the massive reduction is gas related accidents.
That's a link to the GSIUR 1998 SI - that was 18 years ago...
Are you suggesting that there were massive changes between that and the '94 version which account for this 10x safety improvement?
In the last 20 years there certainly have been changes... CORGI was replaced by Gas Safe. The accreditation and registration scheme for gas fitters has changed, the exams altered. Condensing boilers are far more common. There have been substantive changes to BS 5440. Use of newer materials (e.g. tracpipe) are more common.
As a result of those things, industry text books like the Tolley's Domestic Gas Installation Practice series have been revised twice since the third edition in '96...
Are these what have resulted in this 10x improvement in safety?
The main difficulty here is that your claims sound totally implausible.
Are you sure you mean 20 years and not say, 50 years? Are you sure you mean 10x and not say 10%?
The OP was about safety regulations often not being retrospective. Can't you get that into your thick head?
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1984 HSE starts to enforce domestic gas safety Gas hob HSE assumed responsibility for mains gas safety functions on 1 February 198
4, taking over from the Department of Energy. This involves responsibility for the safety of gas mains in the home as well as the workplace. HSE was g iven the power to introduce gas safety regulations under the Gas Act 1972 a nd enforce safety regulations made under this Act. Now HSE and local author ities have joint enforcement responsibilities under the Gas Safety (Install ation and Use) Regulations 1998 and are responsible for preventing injury t o consumers and the public from either fire and explosion or carbon monoxid e (CO) poisoning. More information is available on the Gas health and safet y law and enforcement website.
New regulations in anything are rarely retrospective - especially in building standards and regulations. I don't believe anyone was suggesting otherwise.
What prompted your original outburst?
So we have established that 32 years ago, the responsibility for gas safety has moved from one government department to another...
You were the one making the extraordinary claim that gas safety has improved by a factor of ten times in the last 20 years. Yet you have not explained how you derive this figure?
Do you mean there will only be one tenth of the domestic gas related accidents in 2016 than there were in 2006? If so, the statistics I have seen don't support this claim (not even close). Even figures for the previous 20 years (i.e. '86 to 2006 [1]) don't support the claim, even though they do show a definite trend of improvement (probably by around
30%) over the time frame. While the regulatory environment brought in in that time frame will certainly account for some of that improvement, I would suggest that technology improvements, and the gradual replacement of outdated equipment has accounted for the lions share of the improvement.
[1] Also keep in mind, that this is the time frame that would have seen a significant shift to the use of balanced flues and "room sealed" gas appliances.
You also need to keep in mind that in year 2000 the risks of death per head of population in any type of gas related incident were 1 in 1.4 million according to HSE data. In 2004 there were something like 20 fatalities from CO poisoning, and about a further 3 or 4 from death in gas related fires and explosions. If you are going to take that as your starting point I can't see how you would be able to achieve even a "twice as a good" reduction in incidents, unless you were also able to somehow legislate stupidity out of existence. (since a ten times reduction would require no more than one gas explosion or fire every ten years, and less than two CO deaths per year)
You have made the claim that there are many new rules or regulations - you imply that industry practice is radically different. Yet having read through many versions of the relevant British standards documents, and the industry training text books that cover this period I don't see much evidence of these changes you claim to exist.
No, the problem is that I am not ready to accept wildly exaggerated claims buried under a pile bullshit. Especially when they come from you with your woeful track record for reliability and accuracy.
Perhaps it would be better if you were to admit that your safety improvement claim was a wildly exaggerated stab in the dark, not based on any actual evidence?
I suspect it was really just an attempt to "have a pop" at someone who disagreed with you in some other thread.
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