Evening all
I'm in a real fix and would appreciate some expert advice.
Almost two weeks ago my ~20 year old combi boiler decided to throw its toys out of the pram. Fair enough, I thought, it's finally time to get a replacement. I've had a few different people call and they've all sucked air through their teeth when they see the old boiler's 15mm gas pipe.
I am told that condensing combi boilers require 22mm pipe due to the amount of gas they use on startup. Apparently 15mm may be ok if the meter is close to the boiler but my meter is in the basement and I am in a second floor flat
Easy, you say, just run a new 22mm pipe from the meter to the boiler & hob. The thing is, the pipe coming off the meter is 22mm which goes into the concrete floor, across the basement and then up out of the floor and into the breeze block wall. Where it goes after that nobody knows. I have looked all over my flat but I can't see any evidence of 22mm pipe anywhere so I don't think it downsizes in my flat. The floors are all concrete so there's no easy peeking underneath floorboards.
Ordinarily a new pipe would be run from the meter to the flat perhaps out of the basement and up the outside wall and then into my flat (boiler is mounted on an external wall in the bedroom). The only trouble here is that the basement and meters are in the middle of the block and do not face an external wall so there's no way (that I can think of) to get a new pipe from the meter up to my flat and into the hob and boiler.
I am at a standstill with no heat or hot water and no way forward. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do? I was wondering if there were any circumstances where it was permissible to install a non-condensing boiler that presumably would work with a 15mm pipe as the current one does? Similar to when Thames Water visited when I first moved in and insisted on fitting a water meter. Once they realised that the main water pipe had been tiled in by a previous owner they said they would allow me to carry on as is because there was no way to fit a meter without destroying half of the bathroom. Does anything like this exist in the gas world (I'm guessing what the answer is but I'm clutching at straws here).
Thanks for any advice you can offer.
I'm in a real fix and would appreciate some expert advice.
Almost two weeks ago my ~20 year old combi boiler decided to throw its toys out of the pram. Fair enough, I thought, it's finally time to get a replacement. I've had a few different people call and they've all sucked air through their teeth when they see the old boiler's 15mm gas pipe.
I am told that condensing combi boilers require 22mm pipe due to the amount of gas they use on startup. Apparently 15mm may be ok if the meter is close to the boiler but my meter is in the basement and I am in a second floor flat
Easy, you say, just run a new 22mm pipe from the meter to the boiler & hob. The thing is, the pipe coming off the meter is 22mm which goes into the concrete floor, across the basement and then up out of the floor and into the breeze block wall. Where it goes after that nobody knows. I have looked all over my flat but I can't see any evidence of 22mm pipe anywhere so I don't think it downsizes in my flat. The floors are all concrete so there's no easy peeking underneath floorboards.
Ordinarily a new pipe would be run from the meter to the flat perhaps out of the basement and up the outside wall and then into my flat (boiler is mounted on an external wall in the bedroom). The only trouble here is that the basement and meters are in the middle of the block and do not face an external wall so there's no way (that I can think of) to get a new pipe from the meter up to my flat and into the hob and boiler.
I am at a standstill with no heat or hot water and no way forward. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do? I was wondering if there were any circumstances where it was permissible to install a non-condensing boiler that presumably would work with a 15mm pipe as the current one does? Similar to when Thames Water visited when I first moved in and insisted on fitting a water meter. Once they realised that the main water pipe had been tiled in by a previous owner they said they would allow me to carry on as is because there was no way to fit a meter without destroying half of the bathroom. Does anything like this exist in the gas world (I'm guessing what the answer is but I'm clutching at straws here).
Thanks for any advice you can offer.
