Servicing your own gas boiler

[Tim+]

Does it actually say that or is that your interpretation?

Well that adds nothing new.

Tim

[Andrew Gabriel]

There's always an HSE investigation. They normally find the exact cause (not just poor installation, although they will comment on that too). Their reports make interesting reading, if you're interested in the forensics.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Competence is demonstrated by quality of work (or advice, or knowledge, depending on the context).

Being GasSafe/CORGI doesn't automatically make someone competent, or they could never be prosecuted for being incompetent, and they are from time to time.

[Clive George]

What did the M6 toll people do?

(not something I'm ever likely to use, just wondering)

[Fredxx]

Yes - I missed your point!! :-O

[Fredxx]

Correct, DIYers can be competant.

If it was important for safety, these tests would be made available to all and sundry to determines one's own competence.

[Fredxx]

Please cite, as its the first I have heard of this. The only exceptions might be where the landlord is truly incompetent.

[Peter Crosland]

They are! Anyone can do the training and take the exams if they wish to do so.

[Peter Crosland]

Of course not but that is not the point. Anything burning has an inherent risk of danger. Explosion is only one of the potential dangers that can occur by incompetent work. There are far more common risk of poor combustion is CO poisoning. Do you think it is acceptable to put people's lives at risk by trying to save a few pounds?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wonder how many open flue boilers are still around? 5% of the total?

[Andrew Gabriel]

I had to redo a gas fire installed by Eastern Gas (as was). It was in a fireplace and replaced a radiant gas fire. They connected it to the restrictor on the hearth, and it worked OK whilst they were there. Some time later, I found that after a long time, it would trip off. The cause was that when the main burner lit, the gas pressure dropped and the pilot light was very marginal on the thermocouple. (It predates oxygen depletion sensors, or that would be the first suspicion). Anyway, the cause was that there was too much thin (gaslamp) pipework en route, reducing the gas pressure. Eventually I replaced the gas pipe from the meter for other reasons (disconnecting the gaslamp pipework) and it got a new feed from the new pipework, and worked fine.

At 6kW input, and now being only decorative (originally it was that room's heating but I subsequently installed central heating), I can't really afford to turn it on anymore - the boiler modulated down to 7.5kW can heat the whole house!

[Clive George]

Which is the higher risk : DIY done competently or professional done incompetently? There's plenty of examples of the latter in this thread.

This stuff isn't magic. It's entirely feasible for somebody to DIY stuff competently.

[Tim Watts]

On Monday 21 October 2013 16:23 John Rumm wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I did.

Thus validating John's point.

All this for capping off *outside* - but I wanted to be sure...

[Tim Watts]

On Monday 21 October 2013 19:33 Andrew Gabriel wrote in uk.d-i-y:

To all the nay sayers - it seems that there are more specific citations of card carrying professionals being sloppy and dangerous, than there are DIY efforts.

Interesting...

[Vir Campestris]

We were asked if we had one. We said no. End of conversation.

(they did buy it, and I have no idea if they had it checked)

Andy

[Graham.]

IRTA naked tenant.

[Clive George]

It's not entirely surprising. I'd expect the vast majority of gas work to be done by pros, so one would see many more examples.

I wonder what the proportion of competent vs incompetent DIY is - and of that latter part, how much is obviously incompetent and how much is detail where they've tried to do it right but cocked up.

My plumbing anecdote is from our CH install where a friend did the radiators + pipework and left pipe ends for the stove to be installed. Cue giggling from the fitters "ah, it'll be crap" - till they looked at it, at which point they went quiet. Their joints were worse.

[Andrew Gabriel]

When I installed my central heating, I pressure tested each section of radiator plumbing, similarly to how you check for leaks in gas pipework. So I knew it had no leaks. Except, when it was all finally connected together, there was a leak. I had a few sets of full-bore isolation valves in the system, so I could narrow it down. Eventually I found it - it was inside the boiler and not in my plumbing at all. The drain c*ck leaked where it screwed into a brass casting. Easily fixed by removal and replacement of the PTFE tape on its thread.

[Peter Crosland]

I have never suggested otherwise. In the case of the OP the way he phrased his question suggested he lacked the necessary expertise. The rule really is if in doubt don't. As for risk that is an impossible answer to give a statistically valid answer to. Having said that no system is perfect and we only tend to hear about the disasters regardless of who caused them. Logic would support the view that a properly trained person who does a job diligently is much more likely to do the job competently than an untrained over confident person.

[Rick Hughes]

The problem is, if a house caught fire / exploded .... and you had worked on the gas, and you hold no formal gas qualifications ... be pretty difficult to prove competency.