Routing a gas pipe via the cellar to the 1st floor?

[moonstone]

Hello! I hope I have the right forum...? I'm hoping for some advice on behalf of the 5 leaseholders in my house. I live in a big old house divided into 5 flats, 3 of which have gas meters housed outside the side entrance, which itself is shared by 3 of the 5 flats. One lady on the 1st floor is moving and was told that to get a certificate her microbore gas pipe had to be replaced with a standard sized one so they did that - and routed the new gas pipe outside the building, all around the side door and up to her flat. It's hideous, words cannot describe the eyesore, it's covered in some kind of poo-coloured material (I apologise but that's the only way I can describe it) and it may as well have a neon sign on it for copper thieves. We've been victims of that before. A car once crashed into our wall right at that entrance, and the wall and gate pillar - huge chunks of brickwork - smashed into the exact area where the pipe feeds into the concrete meter housing. None of us (except the lady who had this work done, of course) believe this to be mechanically safe. She has been told by her engineers that it is not safe to route the pipe through the cellar, where the other flats' gas pipes remain, and where her old one was. She has also been told they have to choose the shortest route possible.

We've got four questions:
a. did the old pipe truly need to be replaced
b. is it "mechanically" unsafe where it has been placed because of the issues with a previous car crash and copper pipe theft
c. surely not every 'shortest route' is appropriate and I can find no reference in the literature/legislation/regs that says it's acceptable/reasonable/the unwavering law to surround the attractive Victorian entrance to someone's home with a horrific gas pipe just because it's the shortest route
d. why on earth is is unsafe to go through the cellar? I've read the legislation and the regs and can find no notes on pipes not being allowed into void spaces such as a cellar, only that it must be adequately ventilated. We would all far prefer some ventilation bricks than this monstrosity surrounding the entrance to 3 of the 5 flats.

Thanks in advance to anyone who gives us their time to answer this post!

 

[Mikefromlondon]

I can confirm not only the pipes run in the cellar in every house in my street, but the gas meters are also housed in the cellars in every house, throughout in my area, where most houses have some form of cellars, these were build to store coal during pre-gas times! when people burned real coal for winter fires! Not dodgy fake gas fires that you see now a days!

The houses were constructed during the 1930s, and for the past 90 odd years (1930s) and there has been no gas explosion incident of any kind in my area as far as I know!

Frankly speaking New rules and regulations are a pain in the backside!
and those outside meters really really spoil the looks of Victorian houses, they are ugly, half with missing covers and frankly speaking quite dangerous as any vandals can get to those with broken doors and shut your gas off! They are like a sore thumb!

Is there any way you could hire privately a qualified gas pipe fitter, and ask him to do it privately for you and have it routed as before through the cellar, it was there before wasn't it! and keep that ugly pipe out of sight.

Any gas pipe running along an external wall is more vulnerable to attacks by vandals and copper thieves, and it would be far far more dangerous on the outside wall, and not to mention cars can crash into them, and in fact there was such an incident on my High Street about a month ago, where a car mounted a pavement and struck straight into an external gas pipe running to the flats above a shop front! the pipe got ruptured and gas started to leak out!

The police came along and evacuated surrounding shops and evacuated people in flats above shops! cordoned off half the High street, busses had to wait as they could not be diverted through narrow side streets, only cars were diverted, 3 ambulances and 3 Fire engines were kept on standby!

( You could fall laughing mad how a small gas leak is turned into a nuclear war zone!)

 

[moonstone]

Mike, you are a man after my own heart, this is exactly what the rest of us in the 4 other flats think - every last word you said! In fact, since I posted this, we've had a house meeting (minus the woman who did it) and we've had people out to quote for it, with her approval of course (although it was a bit begrudging and she said it was all out of her hands now because she's in the middle of selling blah blah blah).

So according to British Gas and another outfit whose name I don't know yet, there is indeed plenty of ventilation in the cellar, in fact it has been already built into one of the outside steps that leads to the affected side door, just above where the old pipe runs across the hallway via the cellar (it's still in situ). It's handy to have the (nicely ornate) vent there, because it's at the entrance to 3 of the 5 flats so if there was a leak, lots of us would smell it on our way in or out. So the pipe runs under the communal entrance and then it pops up inside the hall, just inside the door - yes I *had* wondered why there was a 'corner' sticking 'into' the north corner of the ground and first floor hallways, but hadn't thought 'ah that must be our gas pipes in there'. The skirting board's been put in around it and everything - it was just part of the furniture, so to speak, so I hadn't realised. It turns out there are two pipes in there, mine and hers; mine carries on upwards to the 2nd floor. At the moment they're encased in studboard, so that has to get knocked down and steel-cased pipes or steel trackpipes have to be used in that part. It has to be rebuilt so that it's accessible. My dad in fact redecorated the hall 2yrs ago, did a fantastic job and we can employ him to do that for us and paint it nicely in the exact same paint which we still have some of - in the cellar

Getting it back inside to her boiler at the floor level of the first floor is going to be impossible as her bathroom floor and her bath itself would have to be taken out, which I do think is too much of us to ask of her, especially since she's tiled all around the bath. So we've compromised, and agreed that part can stay outside - it's about 10ft off the ground at that point (so unless it's a bus that hits us we're safe - it's not unheard of, I know, but less likely than a car, which we already had!). We're going to cover it in a half-pipe and paint it black to match the existing drains on that wall of the house. That should hopefully help to deter copper thieves - even if they did work out it's copper underneath - because they'd have to spend forever unscrewing the pipe thing before getting to the copper.

One of the companies says there's a couple of options and we might be able to stick to copper piping, in which case we might be able to reuse some of what's been installed. The extra issue is that currently the electrics for the hall light switch run up the same 'channel' so we might need to make a bigger alteration to separate them for safety. So we're just waiting for quotes to arrive now! Her engineers, in drilling a hole into the top of the concrete meter housing, loosened all the apparatus and we had a gas leak which we only discovered after I posted this. Did I mention that they turned my gas off while they were installing the pipe too, without my permission? I had no idea anything was occurring that day with anyone's gas, so had no idea why my boiler wouldn't work and spent 2 freezing days with no heating or hot water, whilst trying to care for a surgical open wound that had to be washed up to 4 times a day and kept open whilst washing it. Nice. 'Furious' doesn't even begin to cover how I felt when I discovered the truth.

It's been a bit of a mare altogether, to be honest! I really appreciate your reply, especially hearing about the car-gas smash. Honestly I'm not joking when I say a car smashed into that exact bit. I was home at the time, it was scary! I live in London too - where was that?

 

[jeds]

This is a constant problem when developing flats from existing buildings. Building control and gassafe have allowed us to run pipes through communal areas in steel. There is also a material called tracpipe. The manufacturers claim it can be run without the need for ventilation. I haven't tested that out with BC yet but it might be worth looking it up and asking the manufacturer for more detail.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Hate these new rules regarding such issues, nothing better to do for these bureaucrats than to sit on their fat arse and make these new rules.

What was wrong with that microbore pipeline that fed the gas supply to that lady before moving out or selling off?

It probably had been supplying her gas for quite a long time whilst she had been there.

Did it not server her its purpose?

Did it not run all her appliances at the correct pressure?

and the answer must be yes of course it must have done so!

However, I got a feeling the contractor engaged to run a new standard size pipe felt that it would be a lot easier and less of a hassle to run it outside than to fidget around dark cellars, and negotiate tight bends and so on!

Plus the fact you said that some of the route it takes is through a studded wall, so this may be a factor in their decision, extra work taking down this studded wall and then rebuilding again! hence they chose the outside shortest and ugly route.

Before deciding, whether the microbore pipe was of adequate size or not,
Did they check the incoming gas pressure before the regulator? which sits before the meter and that it stayed well above the minimum 20mbars that you are suppose to have at the consumer end all the times when using the largest appliance plus all other gas appliances such as the cooker hobs, long as there is plenty of reserve pressure before the regulator, above the minimum requirement, and minimum of 20mbars required at the appliances, there would have been no need to replace that pipe, it is only when the supply pressure drops down at the meter that one should seriously contemplate replacing with a larger diameter pipe. They should have conducted tests before ordering a new pipe replacement. But as I said the new rules dictate all these unnecessary tasks, some without a sound reason! (Taking into consideration what is the likely to be the largest consuming appliance, possibly a 32Kw gas boiler!) as you said it is only a flat! plus may be another 10 to 15Kw for a gas oven and a hob.

I can understand if this was a new development, then yes you may have to follow new rules, but it was an existing installation and one never had any practical problems before, so why now?

Mind you one can run pipes in steel if there is a danger of copper pipes vulnerable to damage by vandals or copper thieves, but I agree they would look really really ugly! I wonder if they would allow such a pipe running externally on a house or a dwelling that is in a conservation area!
Nope! they will bend the rules when it suits them!