gas disconnection and scam?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember John Rumm saying something like:

Smell goes away. Sorted.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. Should be loosening :-)

[David WE Roberts]

** Client is holding a box of matches and a brand new life insurance policy. **

[chris]

Much more effective to rub the joints with TNT and see if they bubble...

[John Nagelson]

Hi Colin, the industry gets the public authorities to impose rules (and, where not rules, beliefs) which profit the industry's members. Same with the medical industry, the legal industry, etc.

I'm not sure he was authorised. His number didn't check out. I'm currently pursuing this with GasSafe(TM).

John

[Terry Fields]

If you are considering having the gas pipework attended to, it might be worth considering having one of the gas fires checked for safety at the same time then and plumbed into the gas system, in order to provide your mother with an alternative source of heating should the boiler break down. An electric heater back-up might not be a bad idea either, and more or less essential if there is no backup gasfire.

TF

[Tabby]

:)

[F]

Isn't the most troubling part of all of this that a gas leak, however 'slight', has been left unattended to for 'about 20 years'?

20 years for goodness knows what to happen...

[Andy Dingley]

Supplemental to that, I would also suggest getting an immersion heater boost timer and installing it in the supply lead to each fan heater. This then gives your elderly relative a simple button for "I'm cold, press this". Highlight it with red insulation tape. Make printed signs, laminate them, and display them prominently showing that some appliances are on timers, some are on demand buttons.

If there are carers going in, make sure that they understand the switchgear and on pain of their immediate dismissal, they agree to leave the settings unchanged. My Dad's place ran over its last winter on electric heating, courtesy of a plethora of oil panel heaters with inbuilt time switches and fan heaters adjacent to the usual chairs with 1hr boost timers. This worked fine, except for the =A31000 electricity bills, because the carers kept resetting the time switches to run 24 hrs. There is no need to over-heat a house to carehome/ greenhouse temperatures throughout the night!

Dad's now in a carehome. The temperature is so high that he was wearing a short sleeved shirt and no jumper yesterday, as it was too hot for anything else (weather outside was cold enough to have the gritters out). The windows were wide open too, to "give a bit of fresh air". I can't imagine what their energy costs are like, but there can be few places so in need of a heat exchanger ventilation system.

[Andy Dingley]

Gas or drains / dead mouse? Smell alone does not confirm a gas leak, you have to do a pressure drop test for that.

If you do have a real leak, then it needs capping off pronto and then fixing forthwith. Use fan heaters in the meantime. Yes, this will cost money. If it's in old and abandoned pipework though, it may be possible to cap off part of the system and leave the rest in service, which will be cheaper than a total replumb.

Do _not_ use British Gas.

[tony sayer]

Yep just been to the 'ospital and you couldn't breath for the heat in there;!..

Anyway what might be useful to the original poster is that Menvier now IIRC part of Cooper security do an autodialler that among things like external alarm inputs has a built in thermostat that can dial up an alarm if the temperature goes below a certain level so that say the relative had a heating failure at night they might possibly get that cold hypothermia might start to set in, at least with this it will call someone and it can dial up to Four numbers Six times and let someone know that all isn't as well as it ought be.

IIRC on the unit you can do a remote listen in if required..

Might prove useful to someone who's some distance away and who isn't checked on that often ?......

[stuart noble]

We recently had a dual fuel cooker installed, and the pressure test revealed a slight leak. The fitter said that level of leak was quite common in older properties and that it would be over cautious to disconnect the supply. For the sake of £200 we got him back to replace the steel pipework anyway

[Nightjar]

You are being paranoid. The chap who came to check for leaks gains nothing from suggesting that the pipework needs replacing, nor do his employers.

I can't speak for the latter, but, as a former member of the Association of British Healthcare Industries, I can assure you that the Department of Health often goes against the interests of the healthcare industry, even to the point of destroying an entire manufacturing sector by a change in policy.

To me, that would only suggest that you have the wrong number. I would expect an online ID checking system to need a number from his ID card, so that you can decide whether to let him in or not. For security, I would not expect that number to be entered on documentation left behind after the visit.

Colin Bignell

[Man at B&Q]

I fixed that in my father's room by turning the radiator down. No one noticed.

MBQ

[A.Lee]

That's right. A 5mbar drop on the manometer over 3 minutes is acceptable iirc. They must inform the owner that there is a leak, but it isnt too bad. However, if there is a smell of gas, then they must disconnect, or find the source of the leak.

Alan.

[John Rumm]

Note the permitted drop only applies to when appliances are connected (i.e. some allowance is made for the fact the control taps may let by a small amount). If you are testing the pipework in isolation, then there is no permitted drop.

[hugh]

The BGAS engineer who came to do my annual landlord's certification left his ID no on the documentation. According to the OP this guy wouldn't give his name. Every employee of a utility company calling especially on an elderly person should as a matter of procedure clearly show his ID and be willing to provide additional identity such as his name. Doorstep deception crime is one of the most frequently occurring offences and the victims are usually the trusting elderly.

[Nightjar]

I would expect the employee number used on documentation to be different from a verification number on an ID card that can be used to check the ID online. Otherwise, you are leaving lots of people with usable verification numbers.

That is not in the original post, nor in any of the posts I've read in this thread.

However, doorstep scammers do not normally turn up in response to a telephone call to GasSafe.

Colin Bignell

[Andy Dingley]

British Gas do!

[The Other Mike]

Many years ago we came back to our semi after a few days away to find our gas disconnected. Next door they had smelt gas and they couldn't detect any pressure drop. Fortunately the gas board could get access to our meter and saw it was a leak on our system that was somehow affecting next door.

They came to investigate further and while there was a drop there was no smell anywhere in our house. After lots of detective work tracing the possible route of pipes It turned out to be a carpet gripper rod nail that had just pierced a gas pipe buried in the concrete floor next to a gas fire outlet. The pipe must have been pierced at least two years before (or come close to it). It didn't leak into the room until the gripper rod was levered off the floor but it effectively saturated the concrete floor under the vinyl tiles and eventually - not sure how as there was a solid party wall, it seeped through to next door.

The concrete was as hard as diamond and even with good chisels and a hefty hammer it took a day to hack out (pre sds!) Had another visit to fix the damaged pipe. In those days the gas board didn't charge at all despite the multiple trips. I reckon you could have probably lit the concrete and used it as a burner as it still reeked a week later when I got the tiles back down!