Andrew Gabriel gas install vs the one I saw today

[ARW]

Andrew very kindly posted this

which was a work in progress by some builders waiting for Trancso to remove the meter.

Now if I was playing poker I would raise him by this

The gas meter used to be at the rear of the existing house. However as they are building a new double story extension at the side of the house the builders have removed the meter and just bent the steel(well it's rusty behind that yellow plastic) pipework out of the way of the extension foundations.

I have a feeling Transco will not be happy when they go to that one.

[Jeff Layman]

I've been trying to work out what's going on with the house on the left (which is apparently occupied as it has a burglar alarm and satellite dish), and where the border is between the two houses. Why has its gas supply been exposed as well? And what is that pipe going from the base of the ladder to the first floor just behind the drainpipe? It looks most like the yellow gas pipe could be connected to it, but surely not!

[Andrew]

My neighbour did exactly that. The Meter was in his garage with a 1 metre path between garage and house. Garage was demolished and rebuilt attached to house with bedroom above.

The original iron pipe that went under the gge floor was inside

4 inch glazed pipes to isolate from soil. All that was smashed and removed and the whole lot including the commpression joint to plastic shoved 1 mter away from its original location and buried in the soil under the new gge floor and dpc.

Because the new gge is 2 mtres forward the yellow plastic and the commprssion joint to the original (already rusting) iron is

*under* the gge floor.

[ARW]

That's not a pipe up to the next door neighbour, just a piece of timber.

There is a wall between the two houses.

I'll take a better photo next time I go there.

[newshound]

To be fair, that old iron pipe was pretty tough and would take a lot of abuse, even at the joints. I know this from taking out a gravity hot water system in my first house, which I believe would have been the same technology.

[dennis]

That pipe isn't connected to the main anyway so what's the problem?

[Andrew]

Well an identical house nearby has already rusted through its 3/4 inch iron supply between meter and house. This is the bit that goes under the footpath separating gge from house. Gge was full of gas one morning, and transco told owner it was his responsibity being upstream.

These houses are on a downhill slope from the road and after heavy rain the ground around the front of the houses is very damp. Those iron pipes are probably immersed in water inside their 'protective' salt glazed tubes.

Immerse a badly protected iron pipe in soil and it's going to fail at some point.

[harry]

They were all galvanised.

[Chris Hogg]

Even galvanised fails in time, depending on the local conditions.

[Andrew]

None of them were galvanised. Standard black iron.

They were painted with black bitumen paint and installed inside

4 inch glazed ceramic sewer and/or surface drainage pipes to isolate them from the soil. Even the damp air inside the containing ceramic pipes is allowing rust to start under the bitumen coating.