I had this discussion last year, too much disagreement to come to a conclusin of course. I'm not sure who sets the ;law and whether the law has to be applied. But when corgi ended and gas safe started the word compendent took on a new meaning, but few understand this.
From what I read last year, you are not allowed to sign off someone elses work.
which makes almost no diyer competent according to the law's definition, which does not actually mean competent.
NT
I've heard this is exactly what happens in many firms. The person doing the work isn't registered, and it is 'checked' by someone who is.
Yep but firms are different to the DIY'er they should have procedures in place that check the proper hierachy of people doing the job, and that would show when something goes wrong who's to blame.
That is OK if that person is being employed or supervised by someone that is gas safe or can prove they know what they are doing. You also have to be compendent in the actual job you are doing. So even if you have installed a gas pipeline from russia to UK that doesn't make you compentent (in itself) to replace a gas boiler in your home.
Parliament and the courts.
That seems to define the "Minimum technical competence (MTC) requirements for competent person schemes". In other words, it's the bits of paper you need to register with Gas-Safe (and hence be allowed to do gas work for hire or reward).
It doesn't define what "competent" means (which is what you need to be in order to do *any* gas work - including for yourself). The law doesn't define that, so it takes on it's ordinary meaning - basically, if you screw up, you have broken the law.
If the work is done under "supervision" then it counts as your own work IIUC. ISTR there was historically a chicken and egg situation that arose otherwise in that you needed to show examples of competent work to be able to join the scheme that would allow you to self certify.
Wonder how they cover it when someone who is registered and therefore deemed competent screws up?
People are assuming this is for a house. It might be for a boat in which case the rule is:
"We [the Boat Safety Scheme] strongly We strongly recommend that any work on LPG systems be carried out by a suitably competent person. "
i.e. "recommend" not "require"
Robert
New people bought a house near me recently (after the previous owner went doo-lally and she ended up in care).
She had replaced the original 1976 baxi bermuda back boiler in 2005 with a new version of the same boiler, complete with a new hot water cylinder, pumped primary, and stainless steel flue in place of the original flue blocks. That cost £4,600 in 2005.
Dumb new owners have ripped it all out, including the loft tanks, and fitted an 'Ideal' combi :-(.
When I pointed out that the baxi had another 20 years of life to the new owner, he said 'but the Ideal boiler has a 7 year warranty' (and he'll need it too). I pointed out that Vauxhall Astras have a 7 year warranty, but they are still crap cars !!.
It also says strongly, but not how strongly. ;-)
I smelt gas when I commissioned the last gas boiler I installed. It was the night of the IRA bomb in Guildford so I was reminded by my radio of the possible consequences.
I eventually found a leak on the new Ideal Standard wall mounted boiler that I had bought.
Indeed so. However this is not the recommended practice. The person signing off the work has to be really sure the work was done correctly. Mostly any serious faults would show up during a commissioning inspection.
A number years ago I had a part time job for a firm of local builders where I did the inspection, commissioning, registration and de-snagging.
Most installs were fine but one was in such direct contravention of the instructions (flue siting clearances) it had to be done again.
I said to someone, "I wouldn't have this job if the Poles could read the instructions and the Brits would read them".
In reply to the OP I'd say: Competence would probably include having been involved with installing a boiler before and demonstrable competence on the practical skills needed.
The things that you won't be able to do are:
Really the best bet is to cooperate with a registered pro (those who can't cooperate would be worth working with).
Ed Sirett Registered Heating Engineer.
When a pro screws up that's in the negligent category they may get into trouble if found out. Depending on the consequences and the severity of the negligence they could find themselves with anything up to a custodial sentence, though usually loss of registration, fines and community payback are the sanctions.
Of course none of us are perfect and everyone occasionally make a mistake.
BBC watchdog exposes them on a regular basis. They change the company name and carry on trading in the same way.
I bought my Viessmann new off an Ebay seller and self installed it.
I initially had problems with it tripping out, and Viessmann sent a field engineer round who replaced loads of bits - to no avail. Like all the electronics.
By total chance I discovered it was the ionisation sensor. The replacement was a modified type. Not had any problems since, and it's now well out of warranty.
Two points.
A plus for Viessmann for honouring their obligations even on a self install. A minus for not having an engineer who could sort the original problem. Even their technical guy who was so helpful on the phone didn't know the sensor had been modified.
To be fair to them, being me I didn't want just a basic installation of this system boiler. I wanted to be able to switch the boiler from heating plus water to water only etc and switch it off too via a remote panel, rather than the one on the boiler. So I used (on their advice) a zone controller for this - but with no individual zones.
What would have been better would have been to simply re-site the boiler control panel, but they said this wasn't possible, as the buss wires couldn't be extended.
Is that you Mr Sirett? Long time no hear!
Yep. It's been a while. Currently I'm accessing this through google-groups. Ed
Nice to have you back ;-)
There are some free news servers about:
LPG is significantly more dangerous than natural gas. Especially on boats.Being heavier than air it can collect in invisible pools and not disperse.
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