Oil smells

[ndberesford]

Hi all

First time poster so please take pity on me if this is in the wrong place, but not exactly sure where it should be.

I've an oil fired external Grant combi boiler. It's been out of use for a couple of years but is on the brink of being up and running again. The oil runs from a tank located away from the house, through a below ground pipe that comes up through the concrete slab at the corner of the house, and then runs along the wall into the boiler. When it was initially switched on there was some leakage from the joint about the concrete, but this has now been soldered and hopefully that's fixed it.

Now we come to the mystery. There is a strong smell of oil inside the house. First of all it was a small upstairs room that's just had a radiator fitted. That appears to have dissipated, but now there's a similar smell in the below stairs cupboard. The heating engineer has a bit puzzled, so I was wondering is it something I should be worried about? Near where the oil leak was occurring there is a crack in the slab, and I wondered if oil might have spilled down that, and the vapour is now rising up inside the wall void?

 

[dcawkwell]

You cannot solder an oil pipe. The kerosene eats away at the solder.

Your "engineer" should know this.

 

[Boilerman2]

Soldered fittings on oil is not permitted fittings should be Flared type or Compression using copper inserts to strengthen the joint,
if oil has leaked into your house it is time to contact your insurer as the cost of putting right could be very expensive!

 

[ndberesford]

You cannot solder an oil pipe. The kerosene eats away at the solder.

Your "engineer" should know this.

He's an OFTEC registered technician so I assume I've got the wrong end of the stick. Going to check what's he done though! The leak was occuring before he did that.

Edit: He says he's used "proper lead solder" not lead free.

 

[oilhead]

OFTEC regs specify mechanical joints. Solder is not allowed. Is the copper pipe bare in the concrete? If so, you may have a leak under the or through the slab which has found its way through the crack. Replace the feed pipe with something compliant.

 

[ndberesford]

OFTEC regs specify mechanical joints. Solder is not allowed. Is the copper pipe bare in the concrete? If so, you may have a leak under the or through the slab which has found its way through the crack. Replace the feed pipe with something compliant.

He's offered to put a compression fitting on it, which I think I'll take him up on. Nagging doubts have entered now though!

In regard to the copper pipe, it's not bare in the concrete. There's plastic coating around the pipe where it emerges from the concrete so assume it's coated all the way through the slab. Some work was done there to deal with some subsidence so I'm concerned the oil pipe might have been damaged then.