'Professional' gas installation

[MadAlicesDad]

Not sure it should be under 'DIY disasters' as it concerns a professional installation and it fortunately did not end in a disaster. However, it may be of interest...

We've just discovered the cause of the 'damp' smell in our dining room. The gas pipe under the floor was joined with an unsoldered coupling, and for the last 20 years has relied solely on flux to seal it!

Was this oversight a one off by the original installer? Probably not as the an adjacent CH pipe joint subsequently started weeping. This time the joint had been soldered but a slight movement of it needed for the gas repair man to fix the gas pipe was enough to break the solder joint!

professional CORGI gas installers

• MadAlicesDad
• 6 Nov 2008
• 1

The top pipe in the photo is the gas pipe and the bottom pipe is the CH pipe.
This installation is over 20 years old. Do I feel lucky to still be here!!


Mike
A competent amateur is safer than an incompetent professional! [/img]

 

[Stoday]

I had something similar. Moved into a 2-year old house in 1970. The original plumber had left an unsoldered joint under the floor standing boiler. That took a lot of finding and fixing.

He also installed a pipe so that it was impossible to remove the firebox to carry out an annual inspection/service. It took British Gas FIVE YEARS of "servicing" the boiler to find that they couldn't do so.

 

[Grot]

Actually soldering joints is waay over rated

 

[roberta1000]

The timescale pales into insignificance compared with yours however I had a gas cooker installed several years ago by the then Scottish Gas Board. For several days we put up with the smell thinking it was normal for a new cooker before I called the Gas Board out to check it. The pipe (which ran round 3 sides of the room) had not 1 single soldered joint - every one was fluxed and ready to solder but hadn't been. The fairly elderly and competent emergency engineer was aghast and so was I.

 

[duff65460]

On gas you will get away with this not on water, because of pressue ,not alot in gas but a dam site dangerous ,tested on manometer before just on fluxed joints, holds lovely , scary stuff Bill

 

[gigz]

I once fitted a new fire for a mate while he was getting his house modernized, few days later he phoned saying he could smell gas. I'd only just tested it, went back, re-tested and it was leaking. Turns out he ripped plaster from the wall and underneath there was two bits of 15mm copper with denso tape wrapped round it as a connector.

 

[swbjackson]

On gas you will get away with this not on water, because of pressue ,not alot in gas but a dam site dangerous ,tested on manometer before just on fluxed joints, holds lovely , scary stuff Bill

Around a month ago I was working in a flat and cut the rising main to fit a scale reducer. When I turned the water back on it peed out of a joint at the other side of the cupboard. When I checked the joint had never been soldered. This joint was on the original pipework and the flat was around 35 years old. Must have been strong flux they used to stand mains pressure for 35 years.

Mike

 

[maddfridge]

hi all

firstly you we very fortunate about the gas pipe

The one thing that you have all overlooked is the mechanical joint without the solder. if the joint was distorted enough by pressure during installation then the joint will hold. i have had this happen with both soldered and brazed joint on water chillers and heat pumps !

The flux and solder create a joint but the flux does not always melt i know that seems a bit strange but i have had flux that has run down form the joint above after the bottom joint has been cooling ( Tee joint )

Turned the water on and watched it pop out not the strain on the pipe but thermal expansion and contraction moving the solder ring yorkshire from the fitting cleaned up and put new solder on fine joint.

i think solder does not always take in the bottom of the annual ring inside the fitting some time just sits there you see the solder appear at the joint line and think job done.
cheers all