Gloworm Compact with Low Burner Pressure

[grill]

I explained to the homeowner about the problem with the pipe sizes and not getting enough gas to the boiler. She is a landlord of the house.

She asked me if it is unsafe and if it isnt then she isnt goingt o bother changing the pipes.

What would your thoughts be on that??

Grill.

 

[gas4you]

If the pressure is as low as you say I would personally class it as AR. Extreme low pressure could cause flame to go out and they would be left with a gas build up or leak.

As she is a landlord I would come down on her hard, tight bi**h.

You can't get in trouble for being too safe and covering your ar*e, but if left and anything happened you could be took to the cleaners and put away. She in traditional landlord style would blame you and say as you left it on it must have been ok

 

[Gasguru]

Oh dear Grill

ACS is clearly proven to be a waste of time.

You don't seem to be aware of and don't posess a copy of the IUSP guidelines.

I suggest you go back and (if a hob/cooker is fitted) check the flames don't go out when the boiler kicks in otherwise BANG and you go straight to jail.

If necessary cap off the gas hob and tell 'em to get an electric boiling ring until the gas pipework is sorted.

Run the hob with 3 burners on max 1 on minimum ie simulate the worst case scenario.

 

[grill]

Okay i see what you are saying. I wasnt going to down this route as the only issue flagged so far with the low pressure is that the water wont heat as quickly.

I will show her your response, minus the tight b&*ch bit and take it from there. I obviously cant sign off on the landlords certiificate if it is AR!!

Nightmare as she is a friend of mine as well. Bad news for her!!!

Grill

 

[gas4you]

Ah, but you SHOULD sign off the CP12 WITH the AR notice attached and get her to sign everything, proving you have turned off the appliances.

If she will not sign it, then call TRANSCO and get the job number. You are then absolved, as they have the legal power to turn off the supply, we don't

You are now 'the last gas engineer at the property' so it all rests on your shoulders

Turning a blind eye to it doesn't work in this trade I'm afraid.

Welcome to the delightfully easy job of a gas engineer

 

[Agile]

If she is such a friend then you could take off the gas valve and inspect the inlet filter is not blocked. Unlikely, but still a possibility.

The very stupid situation is that we as RGIs cannot report a landlord who is refusing to get her installation made safe.

CORGI hold us to install appliances with less than 1 mB drop in the pipes but have no way for us to report anyone else unless they are registered and particularly landlords who refuse to get things made safe.

Tony

 

[grill]

Fair enough guys,

Know as you rightly state you cant be too safe. Just wonder how many boilers out there are sitting in the condition merrily nearly killing people.

I will go through the whole thing with her tonight and clarify the whole situation.

As you rightly state it aint bloody easy!!!

Grill

 

[grill]

Agile,

I already had the gas valve off and removed about 4 Kgs of Copper sulphide from it!!! This didnt improve the situtation at all.

I will just give her the AR notice and get her to sign it saying that no appliances sgould be used until the pressure issue is sorted.

Grill

 

[gas4you]

Know as you rightly state you cant be too safe. Just wonder how many boilers out there are sitting in the condition merrily nearly killing people.

I agree, it's more than you think, but although not the best attitude, until you find one in the course of your work its not your problem.

I will go through the whole thing with her tonight and clarify the whole situation.

Good but you must get her to sign the CP12 and warning notice

Apart from getting experienced in gas work, you also have to learn to be very firm, and obviously polite, to all customers where you find problems.

 

[Gasguru]

4 Kgs

You sure - it takes next to nothing to start blocking the inlet filter and cause burner problems.



If you do any work for friends/family always pre warn them that being an rgi is different than other trades. Make sure they fully understand you have the power to have their gas disconnected if necessary.

Sometimes its better to turn the work down and remain friends .

Ask them about all the gas appliances in the property. Any gas fires are always suspect (I disconnect or AR at least 90% I come across). Get a stack of warning notices/labels etc and fittings to cap off/plug. If you do your job by the book you will be issueing warning notices on a very regular basis.

The only consolation is once you've brought the property up to standard going back is easy.

 

[Agile]

Agile,

I already had the gas valve off and removed about 4 Kgs of Copper sulphide from it!!! This didnt improve the situtation at all.

Grill

Not even a little bit?

If there was so much then the whole pipe may also be full of it as well.

The Polish solution is to wash the pipe out with mains water!

Tony

 

[grill]

Sorry wa strying to add a bit of humour. Was well blocked though.

Am heading over now to check out the pipe work with an installer friend.

Will let you know the score later.

Grill.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I told you that the burner pressure would be OK at 8mBar, not the dynamic pressure. They are two different things! I assumed that being CORGI'd AND recently ACS'd you would be with it enough to spot a low dynamic pressure. I askedin the previous post what the dynamic pressure was.


With ACS fresh in your mind this should really be quite quick to come to you as is the unsafe procedure stuff.


To give you an old story - one of the reasons I bought my house was because of a ***** landlord just like this one. Our gas pipe was undersized for our boiler - when the oven was on low and the boiler fired up to full rate the oven was snuffed out. When the boiler shut down the gas just poured out of the oven.

This nearly resulted in tear when honourable mother-in-law was visiting. The missus was cooking and went out - I came home and went straight to the shower while HMIL was watching some tripe on telly. When I got out 20 mins after I finished the shower there was a tremendous smell of gas and too a very ruined dinner.

We didn't stay in that flat any longer than we had to I can tell you. We had no CP12 either, and when I tried to report it they basicallyu said that they would treat me as a vengeful tenant and wouldn't do anything.

 

[grill]

Hi again,

Go make a cup of tea. The saga continues. Got my mate round and he sized the pipe and we found that the pipe size was more than adequate.

So i scratched my head and decided that i must still have crap at the gas valve. So i screwed the bugger off and hey presto loads more copper sulphide. This time i had the insight to screw of the gas feed pipe to the valve and blow all the rest of the crap out of it.

Hey presto 20 mb working pressure at the inlet. I nearly wet myself!!! So i decided to set up the gas valve properly as per the manual. Stuck the heating on first and set that nicely at 15 mb. Then stuck on the DHW and had a bloody reading of 3 mb. Tried to turn up the potentionmeter but it was up full.

So what the hell is going on now?? PCB problem??

The house has an electric cooker by the way so that is one less thing to worry about!!

I will advise the customer that she needs an inline filter as well. I went out and serviced another boiler after leaving this one. Did my wee routine as advised by your good selves, every pressure was perfect. Service went brillant. Lifted my cash and away i went. Rough and the smooth eh!!!

Am deadly curious about your replies!!!

Grill

 

[Dan Robinson]

Well its stated minimum is 1.71mBar, so what was the temperature, and what about NTC resistances.