Gas boiler servicing is not diy

Like the idiots that made my Ideal Standard boiler with a leak in the pipe to the burner.

Willy die wrote on 10/11/2019 :

What like the British Gas engineer who installed a water heater for my parents, where he left the supply pipe spewing out gas into there home due to his total incompetence?

Like the BG professionals who destroyed my boiler?

.... another attention seeking troll...

Tim

When my daughter moved into her new flat and had the gas inspection she was told that the hob had a flexible connection whiich is a fail.

However, the previous inspectors had passed it every year for the past 10 years?

So, who were these cowboys? British Gas, of course!

But at least he was probably insured... grin.

Seriously, one of the reasons I have no gas is/was the incompetence of people who are supposed to know about them. Brian

The essential qualification is competence. Amateurs do not have a monopoly on incompetence or carelessness.

Wasn't that the original requirement for working on (your own especially / specifically) gas / electric, you just had to be a 'competent person'?

Quite. ;-)

When I was IT training there was talk of some delegates getting their certificates but with little in the way of real world experience being called 'Paper Technicians / engineers'.

Now of course that's a Catch22 as many couldn't get that experience without qualifications so they had to start somewhere, especially if moving across from a different field ... and I dealt with secretaries, managers, general tradesmen and even a girl who was previously running the tea trolley. ;-)

ITRW, some (often bigger) employers would still often take on a 'Paper Technician' because they could often get them cheap(er) and could train them up to actually do the work their way.

A mate who has run his own garage for over 40 years normally looks after our cars that I can't (time, space, difficulty, equipment etc) and he recently had to farm out a clutch job on our Meriva because (without the heavy lifting gear), it was a multi-man job and he is but one.

I rarely have any issues with his work (over 30+ years now) but the clutch job came back with a spanner left under the bonnet, some cable ties just laying around and a lose engine steady. I wasn't rushing them or anything so maybe they all assumed the other people were doing the finishing up (possibly an advantage of working on your own as you have to double check everything and the buck stops with you)?

Cheers, T i m

That assumes that the the manufacturer has not stated that a flexible hose is suitable - in which case it *IS* acceptable.

My parents had their fire in the living room and the boiler isolated and condemned as not conforming to requirements. Funnily enough, it was rapidly reversed and the prohibitions removed, when they pointed out that they had installed it 20 years earlier and as a self-installed system, the gas board had inspected and tested it at the time and signed of on it!

The only reason anyone was looking was that reported a gas leak, which the gas board could not find and denied the existence of, despite multiple visits. We found it ourselves, with soap and water ... in their connection between the regulator and the meter!

SteveW

Its actually the other way round... flexible hose connection are permitted *unless* prohibited by the manufacturers documentation.

This seems to be a semi FAQ, so I have put the relevant reference data in a wiki page now:

oops, sorry wrong link, should be:

Surely, he did a pressure drop test?

GB pretended :

That I don't know - I wasn't living there and was working away. It was a chromed copper pipe 'soldered' into an elbow, where the chrome had not been removed by the BG engineer. As anyone with any experience will know, you cannot solder onto chrome.

I had smelled a slight smell of gas every time I had been there, put put it down to the new water heater. One day when I visited it was particularly strong, so I investigated and found the pipe loose in the solder elbow with signs that it had been attempted to be soldered. One accidental kick and it would have been completely out. I isolated the gas and called the GB out on an emergency.

It might well have passed a pressure test when first installed, but like many jobs it relies on work being done with competence.

No skill is involved at all with gas installation with the introduction of plastic pipes and push fit connectors.

Its possible for a fluxed up but not soldered capillary fitting to pass a soundness test, since the absolute pressure is pretty low (typically <= 30 mBar) it won't blow apart like it will with water. However give time / vibration etc it will leak eventually.

I suppose one might argue that part of the required level of knowledge would include knowing that you can't use plastic pipes for internal[1] gas work :-)

Only the skill to know that plastic pipes and push-fit connectors are *not* suitable for use with gas!

(Assuming you're not talking about underground service pipes...)

Ah, thank you. It's changed again.

The regs were tightened prohibiting flexibles except where the manufacturer OKed them, but they have apparently been relaxed and slightly reworded to allow them again - unless the manufacturer prohibits it.

SteveW

Can you get push fit connectors for gas use with copper pipe? I vaguely thought that I've seen some?