New installation has certificates but dangerous!?

[ericjones]

Now that you have listed all the defects it will clearly be much more than £300 to correct those which need work.

Oh dear. Any "top of the head" figures for this?

Whoever inspected was keen to make it look as bad as possible like saying the motor valve was locked open. It takes 1 second to reset that ( although it may be wrongly wired and not working anyway. ).

To be fair, this is probably only mentioned as it is the cause of the symptom for which we called them out.

Your solicitor will advise on your chances of sueing the vendor. The normal procedure would be for your solicitor to write a letter before action to the vendor with a quote for putting it right and the vendor will usually try to agree a settlement to avoid having to risk paying your legal and court costs and getting a CCJ against him.

Unfortunately, the vendor has "done a runner". Has left unpaid bills with the Estate Agent too, and our solicitor cannot contact them.

Will report back on Gas Safe phone call when I get through

 

[Agile]

The firm who inspected the system are best placed to give you an idea of the price.

My quick calc makes it about £800 but many of the things listed like a valve on the hot water heating coil and the system bypass and roomstat are often left out by less keen installers.

Many on this forum will say that valve is not even needed! It is of course but not all will agree with that.

That list is to bring it up to a best workmanship status. I dont see many of those!

If the vendor has disappeared then you might as well cut your losses and just complain to Gas Safe and see what they will do to force the installer ( if he is registered with them ! ) to correct the safety related faults.

The rest I expect you will have to pay for yourself.

Tony

 

[ericjones]

Rang Gas Safe Register yesterday, used their nice callback system rather than wait in the queue. Chap rang me back and advised me to put all evidence in an email as the quickest way to get the investigation started. Last night put together a (15 page!) letter with evidence attached (letter from our engineers detailing faults, corgi certificate, gas safety inspection report, empty benchmark form, lots of photos of the installation) and emailed it to them. Have had an automated email in response which says they will respond "as quickly as possible".

Also wrote a complaint to local Building Control team, asking how the extension can have been approved given that it has this central heating system installed in it that does not meet building regs. Very similar to above letter with the Building Regulations Approval certificate included. Have had an automated email in response which says they should respond within 2 days.

Hopefully Gas Safe will do their inspection soon and when they're done we can get the system fixed. Had a cold shower this morning. Brrrr.

 

[ericjones]

Just received first phone call from Gas Safe. Now have a case number. They asked if we had fixed the system or left it. I said it was just disabled. They said this was good as they can now send an inspection team. So now I need to wait to hear from them again. Someone will ring in the next couple of days to arrange the inspection, which will be then happen some time after that.

2 cold showers so far and counting.

On the other front, council complaint also has reference number and has made its way to Building Control department who aim to provide a full response in 10 business days or failing that will call to advise when a full response will be provided.

Apologies for using this thread as my diary. Maybe it will prove interesting/useful to others in future.

 

[Agile]

Please continue to keep us informed of the outcome of any visits to inspect its very valuable for us particularly as the new Gas Safe is a new experience and we dont know how they respond or their timescales.

Tony

 

[bengasman]

You are the first case, at least that I am aware of, of what seems to be an unsafe install to be dealt with by GSR.
It may turn out to be fairly innocent, it may prove to be really bad.
Best to err on the side of caution, and I guess there will be a lot of people that are very interested how this is solved.

 

[doitall]

I'm interested as well but not for the obvious reasons.

Yes what they say about the cylinder must be check before it's put back into use.

The boiler however is not even AR, going by the list you have published.

PRV onto the floor, not a problem in a garage.

Lagging, jobs unfinished, but not a safety issue.

Frost stat, maybe built in, and does need one, again not a safety issue.

Boiler wiring, who knows without seeing it, a Vaillant guy on here was advising how to do it, completely contrary to MI's, can't see it as a safety issue though if it worked.

I can't see that GSR will be interested in the boiler.

 

[D_Hailsham]

There is a recent law or procedure that the vendor confirms that everything is in good working order unless disclosed otherwise.

Can you point me to where it says that?

The Property Information Questionnaire, which is a compulsory port of the Home Information Pack, only asks:

10. Is there central heating in the house (Yes/No/Don't know)
10a If “yes”, please give details of the type of central heating (examples: gas-fired, oil fired, solid fuel, liquid gas petroleum).
11 When was your central heating or other primary heating system last serviced? (Date Serviced/ Not serviced/Unknown)

The Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 does not apply if the form is completed by the seller.

 

[Agile]

Unfortunately I cannot, but it predates the HIP.

It may just be that the Law Society tightened up the wording of the pre contract enquiries.

As far as I can gather, if the vendor does not disclose known problems with the heating or electrical system and says or implies that its all working fine then the vendor may be responsible for costs incurred to repair it.

Nor do I know what effect the introduction of the HIP might have had to this matter.

Tony

 

[ericjones]

Just received 2nd phone call from Gas Safe, to arrange the inspection. I asked for the earliest available appointment, which is next Thursday morning at 9:30.

They asked if I would be happy for them to invite along the installer. I hadn't realised they would do this. I asked if it would make any difference to the inspection - is it easier or are they likely to get a better outcome with the installer present? They said no so I said I'd prefer that they didn't invite them.

 

[ericjones]

The boiler however is not even AR, going by the list you have published.

Sorry, what does the term "AR" stand for? I know I said it first, just quoting from the letter we got

I can't see that GSR will be interested in the boiler.

Will GSR be interested in the cylinder installation then? Unsure if Gas Safe limit themselves to just the boiler part of the installation (Gasy bits, Gas Safe? Please excuse my ignorance!). And if they are interested in the cylinder too, but the only Corgi cert we have is for the installation of the boiler, is there anything they can do? From my layman's point of view, I would have thought that when installing a boiler you have to check where the pipes go and that everything it is hooked up to is working properly?

 

[doitall]

Boiler in integral garage:


* Boiler discharges at low level in the garage

The pressure relief valve will only discharge, in a fault condition, it must do so where it is visible, and in a safe position so the occupier does something about it.

A garage floor meets all the regs, although most would prefer it outside.

* No frost thermostat installed

Some if not most new boilers include frost protection.

* Pipework not insulated

All at risk pipework should be lagged, a simple job to rectify.

* Boiler incorrectly wired.

Need more information on what is incorrect, and whether the boiler, heating etc worked.

* Benchmark book not filled in, a requirement for registering with Corgi.

A requirement,and the only thing GSR may be interested in as far as the boiler is concerned.

* No system by-pass and no room thermostat to comply with the manufacturers instructions and building regs.

Not all systems require a by-pass, and some boilers have them built in, a room stat or control is required in the main living space.


* Heating motorized valve locked in open position

The MV is manually opened to fill the system, as soon as power is applied it should release itself.

* Incorrect wiring to programmer.

In what way.

* Wiring center cover left off, exposing live terminals.

screw it back on, see note at the bottom.

* Hot water thermostat on Ariston pressurized hot water cylinder missing

they are bult in, has it been removed or just not wired up.

* Electric immersion (13 amp) wired into wiring center (3 amp). Intended to operate as a thermostat? Does not work

unacceptable see note at bottom.

* No balancing valve on cylinder

explain, the cylinder should have a pressure reducing valve on the mains cold feeding the cylinder, having a balanced cold is not a requirement.


* No automatic air vent

Where and does it need one.

* No pipe insulation

a Building requirement.

* No extra support on roof joists

More information how it's installed and what size joist are used etc.

* Discharge valve from pressure reducing valve disconnected from tundish, terminates in a bucket.

unacceptable.

* Discharge pipe from cylinder terminates at high level under gutter.

Completely unacceptable, and must be to low level in a safe and visible position.

My conclusion is that the problem is 90% electrical, and may have been done by a non-qualified or illegal worker, and out of the heating engineers/plumbers hands.

Unvented cylinders are dangerous if not 100% by the book, and you need a person holding a G3 unvented ticket, but that falls down if the electrician is a chancer, if in this case it was notified through Corgi the they will check it out, otherwise it comes under the building inspector.[/i]

 

[doitall]

The boiler however is not even AR, going by the list you have published.

Sorry, what does the term "AR" stand for? I know I said it first, just quoting from the letter we got

I can't see that GSR will be interested in the boiler.

Will GSR be interested in the cylinder installation then? Unsure if Gas Safe limit themselves to just the boiler part of the installation (Gasy bits, Gas Safe? Please excuse my ignorance!). And if they are interested in the cylinder too, but the only Corgi cert we have is for the installation of the boiler, is there anything they can do? From my layman's point of view, I would have thought that when installing a boiler you have to check where the pipes go and that everything it is hooked up to is working properly?

The gas trade have 3 terms for bad/poor workmanship.

NCS, not to current standards.
AR, at risk.
ID, immediately dangerous.

Unvented cylinders have to be notified, the easy road was through Corgi when you notified the boiler, who in turn send you an MOT certificate that says it was installed by a registered engineer. In my opinion, and we have had this out at a meeting with the MD at Corgi, that it is dangerous to issue safety certificates without an inspection. They are/were aware of the possibility of a dangerous installation and said they would deal with any problems.

 

[ericjones]

Thanks for detailed response. Can't answer your questions myself but I will ask the inspector if he can provide more details on these points. I assume that Gas Safe will be producing some kind of detailed written report from the inspection?

* Boiler incorrectly wired.
Need more information on what is incorrect, and whether the boiler, heating etc worked.

Again not sure, I'm no expert, but I do know that the boiler (in the garage) is not connected to the programmer (on the landing) at all. So I could push the button on the programmer to ask for hot water / heating, but the boiler doesn't have a clue that I've done that... We basically had an everything on / everything off system where we had to turn the boiler on (using the on-off switch on boiler control panel) when we needed hot water for showers etc, and turn it off again soon after to avoid wasting energy by heating all the radiators in the house!

 

[ericjones]

Unvented cylinders have to be notified, the easy road was through Corgi when you notified the boiler, who in turn send you an MOT certificate that says it was installed by a registered engineer.

Interesting. I have seen no certificate for the cylinder. Only cert we have is for "installation of boiler". So maybe my complaint to Building Control department will uncover the existence or otherwise of a certificate for the cylinder?