Gas pipe through-wall sleeving (again).

[Cross Threader]

Hi all, first post here so hope it's an interesting one. I've recently moved into my parents' home with view to a thorough refurb and refresh, and have spotted quite a bit of plumbing that needs updating/fixing. They've also had a nightmarish experience with British Gas Homecare that will take a bit of telling, but here's the starter for 10:

A few (8-10 we think, altho could be more recent) years ago, the local gas infrastructure people said they needed to replace the service pipe between the main and the meter due to suspecting it was responsible for persistent leaks they were detecting out on the road. The meter, at the time, was in an understair cupboard.

The front garden was dug to install the new pipe, and there was an obvious route to take it through an exterior wall, into the corner of the downstairs bathroom, through an internal partition into the understair cupboard and straight back to the meter. However, this would have required making good of tiles, removal and reassembly of existing pipe boxing and other finishing.

Instead, the contractors fitted a wall box, put the meter in it, and then ran 28mm copper from it, through a cavity wall into the hall, before teeing directly onto an existing run of 28 supplying the boiler. The old understair cupboard meter tail was sealed - with the flow through that section now reversed to supply the kitchen hob and lounge fire.

The reason I'm posting is that the copper run from the meter is penetrating directly through the cavity wall. No sleeve. It's been draft sealed with sprayfoam at both ends. My understanding is that this is non-compliant with GS(IU)R 1998 and potentially unsafe.

First question is whether my understanding is correct: Are there any circumstances in which a copper pipe carrying gas from the meter to internal pipework can directly penetrate an exterior cavity wall? And if this isn't to current standards, would it have been permissible eight to ten years ago when the work was carried out?

Second question is, if this is not good, who is responsible? The pipework in question is on the consumer side of the meter, but was installed by the infrastructure provider with whole job done entirely at their behest.

Any advice welcome!

Oh and as a coda, replacing the service pipe didn't cure the leaks. They eventually tracked it down to a fracture in the main, so all of the above was a pointless exercise anyway...

 

[dilalio]

Has a gas safe engineer attended since the meter move, to service the boiler and gas fire?
Long time if no one has!
Is there any note of the unsleeved pipe on service record(s)?

 

[kidgreen61]

If I have read your post correctly, you are concerned about a gas pipe going directly through a wall?

This is common practice, and perfectly safe, the pipe should be sleeved, and the annulus inside the wall should be sealed with FJC or similar, the outer annulus left open to vent.

 

[Cross Threader]

Hi both, thanks for your responses.

@dilalio, as per post, for the time being at least there is an active BG Homecare policy, and has been since they installed the current boiler. And yes, the equipment has been serviced as part of that. In fact there was a BG engineer (in practice, a contractor, due to the industrial action) around to repair the boiler last month. However that may form a separate thread, as the view of that contractor was the the problem he was reparing had been caused by a previous engineer's malpractice. And I know more than enough about the situation to agree. Anyway that's another subject.

Unfortunately, a bereavement is part of the reason I'm here and thus I'm not fully aware of the history and the situation re. service records. There isn't a physical one - it's all on BG's electronic customer record, and while I'm not aware of it being noted, I equally don't know that it isn't.

@kidgreen61, as per post, my specific concern here is that the pipe penetrating the exterior cavity wall is not sleeved and has been sealed on both sides.

 

[ianmcd]

post a pic of where the pipe goes through the wall from the outside

 

[dilalio]

If its been noted down as nts it will continue to be so and will never be repaired unless you pay someone to do it. If there's a service record that can list it being nts since 1st service then you may have some redress with BG to get it changed.

 

[ianmcd]

If its been noted down as nts it will continue to be so and will never be repaired unless you pay someone to do it. If there's a service record that can list it being nts since 1st service then you may have some redress with BG to get it changed.

Or NCS even

 

[dilalio]

Or NCS even

Really should be NTCS but hey-ho... HSE and their TLA's eh!