By the way, just noticed that everyone has been talking about an "unvented cylinder", but I never referred to it as that. All I have to go on is that list of points from our engineer who checked it out and referred to it as a "pressurized hot water cylinder". Are these the same thing?
New installation has certificates but dangerous!?
- Thread starter ericjones
- Start date
By the way, just noticed that everyone has been talking about an "unvented cylinder", but I never referred to it as that. All I have to go on is that list of points from our engineer who checked it out and referred to it as a "pressurized hot water cylinder". Are these the same thing?
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You need to press your complaint and concerns to GSR and the building inspector. Someone is at fault, and my opinion is the electrician, but saying that the installer should have checked the electricians work before he notified.
The cylinder is by far the biggest problem safety wise.
The cylinder is by far the biggest problem safety wise.
Surely not
If I engage a heating engineer, and he chooses to sub-contract some or all of the work to an incompetent half-wit, is that my fault, or his?
A pressurized hot water cylinder is referred to as an unvented cylinder.
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Surely not
If I engage a heating engineer, and he chooses to sub-contract some or all of the work to an incompetent half-wit, is that my fault, or his?
See my post before yours.
The electrician may have been hired by the builder, but yes the heating engineer should have checked everything was satisfactory and in good working order.
Surely not
If I engage a heating engineer, and he chooses to sub-contract some or all of the work to an incompetent half-wit, is that my fault, or his?
See my post before yours.
The electrician may have been hired by the builder, but yes the heating engineer should have checked everything was satisfactory and in good working order.
Technically speaking, since a boiler connection has to be done by a qualified/certified electrical engineer, it would appear that a RGI is not qualified to install/check the electrical components.
We are certainly capable of checking afterwards that it works, but I doubt if you can legally make it stick that it is the RGI's responsibility.
It goes without saying that installing a boiler without verifying that the controls work, is very poor quality work.
By and large, there are only 2 reasons for not filling out the benchmark sheet.
One is just simply forgetting, which can be as innocent as the householder having put the papers in a safe place, unknown to the installer, who subsequently forgets to do it. Sloppy, but no great shakes as long as everything was tested and found to be within spec. It happens.
The other reason would be, that the installer is simply not willing to sign it off for obvious reasons. I would hazard a guess that the latter is the case over 90% of the time.
When I do a proper job, I would like the householder to be able to call me for servicing, alterations, repairs and pass my number on to others; a very good source of additional business. To forgo that money is decidedly odd, and suspicious.
And when you do a service, or repair, you stick yours over the old one, as you don't want to deface the boiler any more than necessary.
It has been my sole source of work, bar one £10 ad when I moved home, for the last 3 years; not to use that potential to earn money is either seriously stupid, or highly suspect.
The GSR Inspector visited this morning. Very nice chap, as helpful as he can be given the remit that GSR have. Can't do anything regarding the unvented cylinder as it's outside the GSR remit but he is qualified on unventeds and did have a look at it and will be noting the problems in his report.
As far as the boiler installation goes, the benchmark really should have been filled out but it is apparently not an absolute requirement. Things that are definitely wrong, and will be going in his report are
* Flue not sealed properly at wall - rattles about a bit in the hole.
* No room thermostat - required by boiler installation manual
* Boiler discharges at low level in the garage. Should be outside.
* No system bypass? Not sure about this one, think he mentioned it. Again a requirement of the boiler installation manual.
The inspector also did a safety check on the gas supply from the meter and noted that there was a leak somewhere. Luckily we traced this to the RangeMaster cooker installed in the kitchen which has now been disconnected from the gas supply which has been capped off in the kitchen, retested and now safe. The cooker now has a lovely "Immediately Dangerous" certificate tied to it. The gas pipe behind the cooker is not high enough for Building Regs, but apparently this might be ok if the cooker instructions override the regs by specifying a lower height - don't have the manual to check this will download it later when I get home and have a look.
This cooker (as well as the boiler) were tested by the same guy who installed the boiler - we have a Gas Safety Inspection sheet signed by him from March. But apparently the leak could have occured at any time since so we can't really chase him on this.
So, the inspector will be visiting the installer to get his side of the story and we should have the report in "a week or two".
Apparently the GSR can make the original installer rectify the problems with the boiler installation. But I don't think it makes much sense for him to come and just fix up the boiler parts of the system - we'd still have to get someone else in to redo the unvented installation and associated electrics etc. They'd probably have to do some work with the boiler too and so we might as well just get someone we trust to do the whole system. Will have to pay for it ourselves.
Still waiting for the official response to my complaint to the Building Control department, but I have been chatting with someone from there who seems to think the extension should never have been approved with the problems we've discussed here and various other issues (such as no extractor fans in the kitchen or the loo with no window)
Will keep you all updated, thanks for all the help so far.
As far as the boiler installation goes, the benchmark really should have been filled out but it is apparently not an absolute requirement. Things that are definitely wrong, and will be going in his report are
* Flue not sealed properly at wall - rattles about a bit in the hole.
* No room thermostat - required by boiler installation manual
* Boiler discharges at low level in the garage. Should be outside.
* No system bypass? Not sure about this one, think he mentioned it. Again a requirement of the boiler installation manual.
The inspector also did a safety check on the gas supply from the meter and noted that there was a leak somewhere. Luckily we traced this to the RangeMaster cooker installed in the kitchen which has now been disconnected from the gas supply which has been capped off in the kitchen, retested and now safe. The cooker now has a lovely "Immediately Dangerous" certificate tied to it.
The gas pipe behind the cooker is not high enough for Building Regs, but apparently this might be ok if the cooker instructions override the regs by specifying a lower height - don't have the manual to check this will download it later when I get home and have a look.This cooker (as well as the boiler) were tested by the same guy who installed the boiler - we have a Gas Safety Inspection sheet signed by him from March. But apparently the leak could have occured at any time since so we can't really chase him on this.
So, the inspector will be visiting the installer to get his side of the story and we should have the report in "a week or two".
Apparently the GSR can make the original installer rectify the problems with the boiler installation. But I don't think it makes much sense for him to come and just fix up the boiler parts of the system - we'd still have to get someone else in to redo the unvented installation and associated electrics etc. They'd probably have to do some work with the boiler too and so we might as well just get someone we trust to do the whole system. Will have to pay for it ourselves.
Still waiting for the official response to my complaint to the Building Control department, but I have been chatting with someone from there who seems to think the extension should never have been approved with the problems we've discussed here and various other issues (such as no extractor fans in the kitchen or the loo with no window)
Will keep you all updated, thanks for all the help so far.
LOL. Think I messed up my punctuation there big time. I meant to say, there is no extractor fitted in the kitchen or in the loo (which has no window so definitely does need one).
You never mentioned that in any earlier posts.
Wrong. it's a building control requirement
Wrong. it has to be in a safe and visible position.
Maybe, certainly not all do, and quite a few are built into the boiler.
Yes. It wasn't noticed by the engineers who first looked at the system.
Still a requirement though. Maybe I misremembered the reason why. Will be in his written report when I get that anyway.
Maybe the GSR Inspector doesn't think that behind the fridge-freezer near a mains socket is safe or visible? I know we can move the fridge-freezer somewhere else, but I'd prefer the discharge to be outside anyway. Will only add a small cost to the rest of the works that need doing so might as well get it shifted.
Not built into this boiler apparently. It's an Ideal Icos System HE24 if you're familiar? A quick search of the Installation Guide finds this on page 11
I have no idea if the radiators meet this requirement or not...
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