Installing a gas boiler competantly

[robf]

It appears 'hard' to find a CORGI registered fitter who wants to simply connect and endorse a replacement boiler. I fully understand why, but having installed 4 central heating systems over the years as a DIY installation I consider myself to be at least 'good' at it, having had British Gas fitters compliment my work at my parents house etc. This dates back to the 1980s when a national company 'HARP HEATING' supplied complete DIY kits with instructions etc. I recall that all I did then was use a manometer to measure the gas pressure.

However, in the light of numerous discussions, I ( among many others I presume ) would want to 'do it right' as best as is possible.

I have had 3 quotes for a replacement boiler to be fitted, each person showed a somewhat different degree of care in assesing the situation - all were CORGI.

In answering this post, what I DON'T wan't is a lengthy thread of people ranting and raving at each other, or me - there is enough of this in this newsgroup and it is somewhat childish at times.

What I WOULD like, is a clear and concise step by step checklist as to what a CORGI fitter would do to verify the gas work. Pressure tests? gas leak checkers? etc etc. I suppose I could go buy a gas fitters training manual - etc :S

If I need to hire or buy some equipment then I alone will make that decision.

One could state that a little knowledge is dangerous, and that by making it seem like an easy to do DIY job actually detracts from the seriousness of the operation. However well intended the 'must have' a CORGI man statement is, I feel I am being cornered into spending far too much money for what will be a few hours 'specialist work' whereas I could do 98% of it 'competantly'.

Disregarding the waterworks bit - anyone care to provide a decent guide to best practise for connecting and fireing the gas bits of a boiler?

I await the flames :)

[BigWallop]

Well, you're correct in all your statements except one at the end of your post.

You may well be able to do all the work on the water and gas side of such an installation. And you may also be more competent than some CORGI registered engineers, but the point of you not being a registered installer means you can't positivly sign off a proper commissioning certificate because of it.

In the event of a problem occuring, you will be taken to the cleaners if it is found that it is your error in the installation, then you only have yourself to blame for any losses.

Anyway, I think that you have missed the pointy completely or miss read the posts that you got the information from, because you do not actually have to have a registered engineer to install the system if it is in your own property. This only applies if you wish to carry out gas work for other persons who believe you to be competant in doing the work and you're gaining profit from the work you're carrying out on the gas services.

So you are quite within your rights to install any gas services in your own property and live with a consiquences of a fault, but, when you come to sell the property on, you might find that with new requirements currently being disscussed, you may need to obtain a proper certificate of correct operation and installation before anyone will accept the sale of the house. A bit like a landlord currently has to do with any gas appliances in a property they wish to let out to tenants.

[RichardS]

In this case a landlord's gas safety inspection and certificate could be considered a positive selling point, and a pass with flying colours would enable you to answer questions from buyer's solicitors with a degree of confidence backed up by proper certification.

cheers Richard

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Andy Hall]

Hopefully not (or at least contained within the boiler.) :-)

Ed Sirett's FAQ covers most of what you need to know.

Gas fitting FAQ

do try to obtain a copy of the installation instructions for the proposed boiler. Many are downloadable from manufacturer web sites. Most seem to be generic as far as flue siting is concerned, although there are numerous more flue construction options than there used to be. For example, Keston and others have flue options involving 50mm plastic waste pipe which can even have inlet and outlet taken to different places.

Some boilers are still set up using burner pressure in the old way. Some of the new designs, especially modulating condensing boilers with premix burners, require a flue gas analyser to set up properly. These are about a £250 investment.

The other factor is that installation of a boiler is now subject to Building Regulations. There are two ways to deal with this:

- Use a CORGI fitter. Since CORGI is an approved scheme for BR purposes, they can self certify the work.

- Submit a building notice to the local authority. This will cost you a fee based on what the work would have cost if done professionally. The local authority, probably through the medium of subcontracting to a CORGI fitter, will inspect the work.

The Building Regulations requirements (principally the energy conservation aspects) require provisioning of appropriate controls.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[BigWallop]

Correctly said that man. :-)) And a much smaller paragraph than my own waffling.

I'm tired and I'm now going to bed. Good.........whatever time of day it is.

[Christian McArdle]

I would hope not, if you really are competent. ;-)

Christian.

[Grunff]

Allow me...

The funny thing about Usenet that many don't seem to appreciate is that it isn't your personal support forum - it is a free, open discussion medium.

You post a question, you take what you get - that's the deal. You can't dictate to people how they should respond to your post, or the direction in which the thread (which you started, but certainly don't own) may take.

So what *you* want really doesn't matter. Given the nature of this group, I'm certain that you will get some very helpful replies, some of which will contain an answer to your question. You will also get some posts which don't address your question at all, but which are somehow related to what you said. If you don't like it - don't post to newsgroups!

[Andy Dingley]

It's more than one "few hours" task - it's two sets of work. One at the start, to get the siting and flueing right, one at the end to check it.

If I were a CORGI chap who had no problem with certifying someone else's hopefully competent work, then I might do this. But there's no way I'd ever agree to "just come along at the end and certify the thing". If Bob the Builder has stuck the flue terminal into an internal corner of an enclosed yard, then you can't "inspect out" that sort of basic design error. Yet you're the last guy on site, so everything gets to be _your_ fault. It's a mug's game (I've been a subbie far too often and got caught like this).

If I were a CORGI chap, not even counting the current shortage or people and excess of work, then I wouldn't touch this kind of job. There's just no gratitude in picking up someone else's bad workmanship, and no personal benefit to being lax in signing off somethign that's not up to scratch. Chances are that to have any faith in an unpracticed fitter doing the work right, you'd have to spend as much time on-site observing as you would for doing the work yourself.

Building a whole row of houses and having an unskilled assistant do a lot of the install work while a qualified fitter observed and did sign-off, then that might work. But as a one-off, I just can't see it.

-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

[Mike Harrison]

Wickes have a leaflet about installing central heading using their boilers, and have a big list of people on the back to call to do the gas part.

[Dave Plowman]

How's the boiler going to heat, then?

[Christian McArdle]

Maybe he's got one of them catalytic flameless burners?

Christian.

[Ed Sirett]

This is the rub. Some boiler makers include very good explicit instructions (including the little sketch of the house with carport and extension showing all the require minimum distances to each feature...). Others just say "flue to comply with BS 5440-1".

If you get the boiler siting wrong then there is no way it can be right without starting over again.