HETAS Engineers a bunch of lying so and so's....

point taken, we now store the wood in an alcove to the left of the hearth. to be fair, the wood was sopping and were trying to get to a level of dryness. We soon learned it wasnt a good idea to stack next to the stove and we no longer do this :mrgreen:

Hey these argumentive gits with vested interests are having a right royal go at you, but you did the same as me a self install, screw Hetas (robbing t£ats) and screw building control I bought all the components to fit my stove then contacted 3 hetas installers to install it and guess what! not one of the f%gkers wanted to install it????????????? WHY??????????????? because they could'nt guarantee my parts met Hetas standards, what they really mean is they could'nt load more on the bill for parts..............Hetas who needs you not me
 
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The main Chimney fires source of a chimney fire Is from burning unseasoned or green wood and by the sounds of it your also trying to save money hereby drying it in your front room! This is penny pinching at its absolute worst! It will take years off the life of your non HETAS/BC signed off self install plus you'll need to sweep between 3-4 times a year.
Green wood let's the vapour go up the liner and mix with the spot to produce an acid which will eat away and shorten the life of your liner. Which means in the 10-15 years that your planning on staying there you'll have to replace the liner again.
I'm coming from a personal interest as I'm becoming a HETAS installer not due to the financial aspects but sick and tired of sweeping bodged installs from sweeping customers who thought they knew better plus being a near fatal victim years ago to an unscrupulous landlord who thought he'd save a few quid and nearly killed me and my whole family due to Carbon monoxide poisoning (and no I don't know if he was prosecuted)
All the hard work of phone calls for parts and getting quotes and ranting at Tradesman on here has been completely undone by your own admittance of drying your wood out in front room as you should be getting seasoned/kiln dried wood from a decent supplier or if you've got the room seasoning it yourself. Seems you're trying to save money at every opportunity which combined with burning non seasoned wood will either lead to chimney fire (you will be uninsured as a customer of mine recently discovered and I was called to assess damage with CCTV survey. IT'S SIMPLY NOT WORTH THE RISK OF NOT GETTING DONE BY EITHER A REGISTERED INSTALLER OR SIGNED OFF BY BC!
 
Not to mention the fact that local councils are also looking at charging £1,500 per engine that has to attend putting out above mentioned chimney fire if it can be proved that your appliance was the cause of the fire. 
Add the fact that you'd be uninsured and those saved pennies start to look frighteningly like six figure payouts. Recently a row of thatched cottages in Devon caught alight and it was down to incorrect fuel and not enough maintenance plus I believe an unregistered install 
Still feeling confident about DIY? 
 
A swept brick flue will not catch fire.

And I am not dumb enough to burn green wood. It was already stored to air for over a year but was a bit damp due to recent rain. So, again, I ask, what have I done in my install any differently than you as a. So called "expert" would do? Chimney swept by a hetas sweep recently didn't have a single issue when asked about the install.

Next question from the HETAS union?
 
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"Green wood" in the trade (ie chimney sweeping, the trade of which I obviously am a member of) is any wood with a higher than recommended burning percentage.
It's recommended to burn at no higher than 20% moisture content (of which you can test with a moisture meter)
Now bearing in mind on a previous post you said you dried your wood out by the fire??????? This leads to excessive moisture in the flu and combined with the soot creates acidic tar deposits WHICH ARE HIGHLY FLAMMABLE!!!!
These can only be eradicated with burning a chimney log in a stainless steel liner and regular sweeping up to four times a year OR in a Clay/brick chimney using a reamer attached to a set of flexi rods and a drill to smash the above mentioned tar deposits away which ARE HIGHLY FLAMMABLE AND WILL CAUSE A CHIMNEY FIRE EVEN IN A BRICK CHIMNEY!
Are you completely stupid or go on please tell me I'm wrong along with all the other tradesmen that come on here and you smugly claim (incorrectly) that you have all the answers
 
You know what you should have done HETAS/BC and as long as there's a good draw from the smoke pellet before and after the sweep and everything's safe 
as a sweep I don't really care wether you installed it yourself or not! It's yours and your families lives your risking not mine. As long as you listen and act upon my recommendations that I write on the insurance certificate relating to moisture content of wood (I include free testing of moisture content of customers wood and also offer moisture meters to ensure the wood customers buy is exactly what theyv'e ordered when the lorry load turns up), frequency of sweeping and any other recommendations I think you might need to keep you and your family safe until the next sweep. If I felt you were going  ignore my recommendations then I have a copy of the insurance certificate signed by yourself with all the T&C's on it. 
Chimney Sweeps are known as the Police of the solid fuel world and we're duty bound to report something we feel is unsafe. I'm not for one minute saying yours is unsafe but the point I'm trying to make to you is :-

IF you burn wood (even if it did get rained on you're not storing it correctly) with a higher than recommended moisture content it's not a case of if but when you have a chimney fire (even in your brick flue covered in Tar as normal sweeping cannot remove this) 
and your insurance company (if you and your family are lucky to escape the fire) WILL NOT PAY UP! No matter how much you say you followed the Regs they'll want 
a Certificate of Compliance. 
 
Customers using a HETAS Registered Installer will be given a HETAS Certificate of Compliance by the installer on the completion of installation work. This is vital importance in demonstrating that the installation was carried out by a competent installer working for a HETAS registered business and complies with the relevant Building Regulations. The information on the certificate is used to record your installation, and in England & Wales it is used to notify your Local Authority Building Control Department (LABC) of the work that was undertaken. This 'self certification' by competent registered installers takes the place of a Local Authority Building Notice which could cost you a significant amount of money (sometimes up to £300). The HETAS installer is charged a small fee by HETAS for this service, but much less than the charges incurred if you seek a Building Notice via the Local Authority. The information is required to validate household insurance and will be required by Solicitors in any home selling process. Failure to notify the Local Authority (the process differs in Scotland), can be an offence resulting in enforcement action being taken against the Householders and/or the installer, this could cost anything up to £5000.
Notice "validate household insurance" 
I'm guessing you don't drive on the roads without insuring your car? So why risk the biggest purchase in your life?????? 
 
Thanks for the Concern, I have never burned green wood and never will. The wood was drying out as I have stated after it had been left to dry out for over a year and was only slightly damp due to recent rainfall. Hence drying out before use. Yes, I have a moisture meter. Hence why I was drying it out

This 'self certification' by competent registered installers takes the place of a Local Authority Building Notice which could cost you a significant amount of money (sometimes up to £300)

If you read my original message on here you will understand I tred to find a hetas 'engineer' (not that they are Anything of the sort). I had no option other than self install as no hetas unionist would install my flue unless they were able to fleece me by doubling the price of materials. On top of this, they wanted over 400 quid to fit, which is an absolute joke for half a days work. Let's not forget that a century ago this was a job that was completed by children.

I don't want a labc certificate, and if when we come to sell the house the surveyor creates a problem, the potential purchasers have the option of me ripping it out if they are not happy with it. This county's building trade has been ruined by over regulation; Whydoes it cost 300 for self cert labc notification? I tell you why; the scheme is more about keeping trade in work to pay registration and pointless certification fees and very little to do about safety.

Feck the labc.
 
HAHAHAHA! Handbags, toys out of pram, I knew you'd crack. I guess you were bullied a lot in school by people who went on to become HETAS engineers and that is why you have such a chip on your shoulder regarding any tradesmen. Good luck with that. I'd keep that temper under wraps also otherwise your likely to kick a hole in some plasterboard or do something you might have to get a professional in (god forbid)
Good luck with an attitude like yours and I'm off now to do another install to pay towards my Holiday in New Zealand next year PMSLLMFAO
 
Well that's one thing you've got right on this forum however I'm no doubt one of my HETAS Brethren will indirectly pocket your cash when the potential purchasers offer you less for the property to reflect the works that should originally been done correctly in the first place (like the rest of the population)
I do have you to thank to be honest as whilst perusing articles for information on becoming a HETAS solid fuel engineer yours spiked my interest only due to the fuss you made about being quoted so much. I wonder how many other people have decided HETAS is the way forward to earn a good living?
Now then go and copy and paste some more of my script and add a witty comment!
 
Well that's one thing you've got right on this forum however I'm no doubt one of my HETAS Brethren will indirectly pocket your cash when the potential purchasers offer you less for the property to reflect the works that should originally been done correctly in the first place (like the rest of the population)
I do have you to thank to be honest as whilst perusing articles for information on becoming a HETAS solid fuel engineer yours spiked my interest only due to the fuss you made about being quoted so much. I wonder how many other people have decided HETAS is the way forward to earn a good living?
Now then go and copy and paste some more of my script and add a witty comment!

Hopefully a fair few DIYers will read this and decide to go down he same line as me, when they see what a load of old cr@p the scheme is. A potential buyer could try it on, but there is so much demand for 450k+ houses in my area I would tell them to sling their hook or pay for the labc fee themselves if it was such an issue, which it isn't! It's just a piece of beaurocracy required that is pointless. We have adequate ventilation,we have a co detector, the hearth is suitable, there is plenty of space well in excess of regs from combustibles, it's fully compliant bar the pointless certificate! If I need it, I can get a labc certificate when I move out. I am not fearful in the slightest, I sweep out my own flue twice a year. I have carried out all the tests recommended by bc regs and the flue passed with flying colours. It's not hard to fit a metaltube in a chimney and backfill. Hope lots read this and realise how much of a scam the hetas "engineer" title is. It's like calling a bin man a refuse engineer. There Isn't any engineering involved. For those of us with chartered engineering status, gas safe or part p qualified, it's frankly an insult to call yourselves engineers.
 
Ah yes the good old copy and paste. You can quote how all those DIYers are going to rally around to your solid fuel home installation call (so many of them rallied to your defence at my destruction of your "so called" knowledge of chimney sweeping! At the end of the day there are 2 ways of legally doing this and I'm not going to repeat them as myself and other people who've commented to me privately about your inane boring repeated repeated repeated defence!
HETAS/BC That's the rules daddio! Nothing you can say on this or any other forum is going to change that. So climb back under your rock and die quietly
DIYers ARE NOT going to risk losing their home if a chimney catches fire and they're not insured. Are they REALLY going to lose the one thing they've spent the whole of their lives working and paying for to satisfy one very boring twisted chap with a MASSIVE chip on his shoulder complaining to his wife "look what someone's written now dear" please!
I must admit I've really enjoyed you making yourself look even more foolish trying to buck the system. Crack on Sinbad, I'm not here to make freinds I'm here to make a difference
 
Hello sirsweepalot101 others have tried to give some decent good sensible advice to this chap but he declines to consider it.

Really seems hacked off with what he sees as extortion but fails to see the cost involved in the whole process only sees the bottom line.

Can you private message me at some point cheers.
 
just been reading all this,mr (ive red the regs and now know it all),great fun.you aint got a clue of pricing and how it all works etc,so please dont insult all the men and woman who have the GUTS to go self employed,thank you....by the way,what cretinous job do you do,or have done?thank you
 
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