Heating Mafia

[peter anderson]

At my college we had a talk by a guy from Titan Tanks, the company which makes oil tanks. He was showing us lots of pictures of tanks which were in dangerous locations, one of which was in a car park. He mentioned the danger of cars smashing into the oil tank. I think the problem wasn't so much that the car would explode but rather that the impact might cause an oil leakage.

 

[oilman]

PaulAH, ask the building inspector, he'll tell you if it will affect getting certified. From the pro's position, we can install and commission a boiler and connect a new oil line to an existing, non-compliant tank as long as what we do doesen't make it any less compliant.

Whatever the state of things when you have a certificate from building control, if parts don't comply, they don't comply..

For tanks have a look here

The statistics of roasting incidents are not relevant, it's JP who'll be doing the roasting.

 

[PaulAH]

My oh my, what fun that committee of jobsworths must have had writing their rules about tanks. And now I take another look at the installation form (triplicate) and find that all electrics must be certificated to IEE standards.

Oilman, you're brilliant, I love you. But I've just been watching people being fried alive in Iraq, read about a generation of kids poisoned by legally sanctioned chemical food additives, and seen how the government-backed speed camera industry is little more than a money-making scam.

Sod the regulations. I'm going to get that boiler up and running by myself - determined, of course, to pollute the local stream, squander the earth's resources and set fire to my family and neighbours.

See you in court, JP

 

[oilman]

Oil tanks can be quite nasty, tanks dumping 200 gallons of oil into the ground have resulted in houses being condemmed when it got underneath them, and there have been incidents of houses being burnt to the ground when fed by an oil tank.

The regs might look like an irritant, but you may as well comply, because you might be ok until you sell your house and then buyers start looking for discounts in £ten-thousands when it would have cost you £hundreds to install to regs.

Eastern europe has got a few years to catch up with the UK's level of bureaucracy, might be worth considering emigrating

 

[PaulAH]

Dunno about emigrating but it might be easier to move house!

No, you're right Oilman. I guess I had one beer too many before writing last night. But I still think some of these rules would be more effective as 'good practice' guidelines. The risks of a tank catching fire are still incredibly small, much lower than the dangers incurred by getting out of bed. To condemn a whole system for the sake of a detail that may involve a 1:1,000,000 chance of accident does not make actuarial sense.

With so many regulations to follow, there will always be people who think 'sod it, I won't bother' - as I did in gloomy mode last night. So they'll either cut more corners than they would if sensible advice was freely available, or they won't get around to replacing the system at all.

The risk of my system blowing up is already 2:1 (it has - twice!) so it would make more sense to let me freely get on with reducing that risk to 1:1,000,000. I'm already doing my bit for accident prevention simply by replacing the boiler.

You mentioned the dreadful Flixborough incident. Another one that springs to mind is Ronan Point, a tower block in East London that blew up in 1968 with serious loss of life. Funny, isn't it, how both were "state of the art" installations, one by a local authority, the other by the tightly-regulated chemical industry.

Cynical? Moi?