DIY Boiler Installation

Fined for illegal installation

Note that both the unregistered installer and the GSR registered man were fined.

 

Yes i have seen these cases. The Installer was NOT a DIY person he was a person fitting it for the resident and the Gas registered engineer did not pay attention to detail. The flue turned out to be incorrectly installed.

I seriously don't understand how some can be so stupid, if a flue is installed going directly through the wall from the boiler fastened to an outside wall and meets all regulations it is plain to see a flue is installed correctly.
If you fit a boiler in an obscure place and run a flue in a cavity then a GSR should fail it.
Of course GSR will be fined if he does not fail an installation where he/she can not fully inspect ever aspect of the flue.

Also this argument about a GSR signing off when he can not check everything of another persons work because he cant see or view the entire piping sizes and routes.
The GSR should make efforts to get the installer to lift up the floor boards or whatever so he can view the entire installation.

Seriously a GSR engineer is considered qualified...

I am in the Electronics industry and seriously if i cant verify something it needs to be opened up and inspected, it is part of the job. You don't just give it a tap and say its ok, you actually do remove panels and so on, trace back the entire wiring and test, inspect and verify every connection as per the regulation.

A Good GSR would never miss anything and there would never be a problem in this area if a GSR would not be so self-importantly head up ones *** trying to monopolise the industry to force out the DIY installer.
So yes, the GSR should be prosecuted for not inspecting a installation fully and thoroughly.

Seriously people now a'days want money for nothing and their chicks for free. Sorry but being a GSR is not the career move to get your money for nothing and the chicks for free regardless of the residents throwing themselves at you for sex.

Seriously if you can not check tightness of a radiator system so much so that you need to have plumbed it yourself then maybe you are in the wrong trade. A good plumber can tell a good pipe joint just by looking at it and as i said before if that means the DIYer needs leave the floor boards up for the GSR to inspect then that is what needs be done.

 

You are missing the point: The GSR was not fined for missing the incorrectly installed flue but for signing off someone else's work.

See also Two contractors fined, third paragraph.

 

Yes in a commercial setting. The two were installing a Gas appliance in a commercial setting for money.

This is NOT a DIY situation. The Clue is in the title, "Two Contractors", That is in no way a DIY installation, see a GSR can be paid for the gas test and inspection but the person installing it can NOT. If you are a DIYer you are not going to get paid as it is you doing it for you and or your family.

The GSR does on the other hand charge for the entire inspection. If a GSR engineer signed it off saying it was his own work then well... If the GSR do not provide a section to include that work carried out was carried out by the property owner/occupier than that is a GSR maladministration.

Oh and the GSR body is very guilty of maladministration amongst other things like scaremongering.

The actual legislation you and they refer to states.

at the beginning of every clause:

Any Person who is employed or self-employed to work on Gas appliances...

So any person not employed or self-employed as in taking profit falls under 'Are they competent?'

The job of the GSR in a DIY setting is to ascertain the installation has been fitted by a competent person and is SAFE in all aspects. That should be the only work a GSR signs off.

 

So a DIYer and a Contractor are very very very different.
The reason for all this madness of the GSR and why the legislation is this way is because of the cowboy builders/plumbers/electricians.

There have been for many many years these two part cut corners bad workmanship traders who do a very very bad job. This puts the customer in serious danger(note customer) so anyone who carries out gas contract work regardless of how big or small requires to be Gas Registered as so it protects the consumer from these cowboys.

When performing DIY this is not the case but again competence is very important. I read a case where a DIYer installed an external boiler internally because it did not require a flue. Obviously for those that did not pick up on this, the flue was not required because it was an external(outside boiler) and the nasty fumes were expelled via a built in flue because it was an external boiler.

This guy installed it inside clearly showing his incompetence to install anything regardless of it being a boiler. What gets even more scary is that a GSR inspected it safe... wow just wow.

The GSR and Competence go hand in hand and one does not overrule the other.
Taking a closer look at the GSR website, one can find a section of DIY home improvements for Gas appliances.
Within this section hidden away in a dark corner of their site it does NOT say anywhere not to DIY your own boiler because it is illegal.
It does however advise all over the place that you should consider using a GSR engineer rather than DIY. That is clear proof(as if the legislation was not enough) that a DIY install is not illegal but just not recommended.

If a GSR engineer refuses to inspect a DIY install then that could constitute a dereliction of duty. His main duties are to make sure a Gas appliance is safe in all aspects of the word SAFE. Refusing to inspect a system for safe integrity really is him/her dereliction of their duty as a GSR engineer.
If a GSR engineer is a wimp and has not got the balls to disconnect the gas and tell the customer you screwed that up, go fix it, or offer them to fix it for them at a reasonable cost then maybe they need a change of career.

 

So are you saying that it's against the law for a self-employed, non-GSR, plumber to install a boiler for money and get his GSR mate to sign the job off; but it's OK for a non-GSR DIYer to install a boiler in his own home and then get his GSR mate to sign the job off?

If so, that conflicts with Gas Safe's advice in Who can legally work on a gas appliance, which says:

It is not acceptable for someone who who is not Gas Safe registered to fit a gas appliance or do other gas work and then have the work checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Both parties would be breaking the law.

This is true of both paid work and DIY work. Gas Safe make no distinction.

 

No, what GSR say and what the Legislation say are tow different things. GSR are NOT the law and they are misleading the public with their rhetoric.
You need to read the Legislation not the words of the GSR.

Secondly, there is no such thing as signing off the work for a DIYer or any installation performed by DIY.
The devil is in the details lol.
Because a DIYer is not a company, there is no work procedure or HSE documentation that applies. This means the job does not need signing off and therefore has no signing off paperwork to accompany it.
All a GSR does is produce a gas safety certificate of gas pressure, tightness test, burner test and detailed inspection including notes as to that the GSR engineer is not the installer of the appliance.
That is it there is no sign off.

This then is for the GSR to investigate if the work carried out was by a competent DIYer. the GSR engineer is authorised to not install or to cap off the gas in the event he finds a dangerous installation.
The GSR engineer is not liable unless he lies. His responsibility is to test inspect and report possibly even take action by capping of the appliance based on his/her analysis.

Again it has to be made clear the GSR is NOT an authority with given or granted powers of Law or Legislation they are an organisation, a corporate one at that which makes money out of prosecuting cowboy plumbers.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2451/contents/made


The legislation is the truth NOT the GSR if you compare the both you will find the GSR are conflicting, effectively misleading untrue information that can only be considered propaganda for their own agenda.

There are so many organisations mainly corporate who mislead the public with the interpretation of competent.

Lets clear up competent once and for all. It is not a wide or vague definition, like many say it is.

A competent person is one with all the relevant knowledge and skill to carry out the given task in hand while following all regulations and or manufacturers specifications and recommendations. A person who can fully comply and carry out instructions with or without exceptions as detailed to a given task. This would also include knowing when a task contains an item deemed unacceptable for use on that given task such as a non BS conforming component supplied from a unknown source. This again would also include the full skill-set of knowing any chemicals, compounds used in a given task deemed unfit for that task.

A Competent person does not and never will mean you need be a member of some organisation to perform the task. It means you must know what you are doing without exception unless a specific instruction permits for that exception. If there is something you don't know then you are competent enough to seek the information to correctly perform the task properly. Ignorance is no excuse within the scope of the Law...

This is why an amendment to the legislation is required so it can say.

Any persons other than a registered and certified licence engineer must not fit or tamper with any Gas plumbing. This means it is the GSR engineer that has to actually splice, solder join and feed gas into a appliance.
As it stands no where within the legislation does it say this. In fact what could be considered competent in a court of law with a good case and evidence provided could mean a DIYer could install the Gas pipe.
Even i am not comfortable with this.

The Boiler and all central heating fittings a full inspectable flue and correctly mounted boiler with all its pipes valves and fittings correctly installed and testable should and does come under competent person. Gas plumbing of the gas feed and burner efficiency testing as well as tightness testing should never ever be allowed by a DIY person. This is not restricted within the legislation and it is the legislation that is the real deal.

GSR is just a website of BS Propaganda.

Every case you look at, they were all convicted under Civil law(maritime law) otherwise known as corporate law and this does not apply to an individual who is NOT trading.

The only way in which a person can be tried under common UK Law is if they are putting themselves and other in serious danger or have actually harmed someone(s)

 

I think you need to look at what the Health and Safety Executive think.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/landlords/safetycheckswhocan.htm

Kind regards

 

A DIYer installs his own boiler and, following your advice above, does not get the work checked by a GSR.

A few years later he decided to sell his house. A prospective buyer's solicitor asks for the paperwork showing that the boiler installation has been properly registered. Obviously the seller has no paperwork, so what does he do?

Is it just a coincidence that you use the same arguments as Water Systems?

 

The Regs and the HSE make the distinction.

The Gas Regs apply to the installation and maintenance in domestic and similar situations. In an industrial situation, first line fault finding and low level maintenance such as changing a thermocouple can be carried out by a compeent plumber, pipefitter, spark etc, however installation, servicing and modification mus be by a GSR approved contractor.

Kind regards

 

Yes HSE and GSR all relevant to commercial entities. Has nothing to do with a human being, person who is not in business.

GSR are nothing more than a prosecution Gas Police centre for rogue trader type cowboy plumbers and a safety service to inspect dangerous and hazardous to life installations. As i said before They are NOT the law, they are not Judge Dreads Brother although at times i tend to think they think they are.

Now that is the crucial point right there. Yes when one comes to sell the house and requires the boiler installation date more than just a scribbled down date you mustered up.
Valuators tend to see this as a property without heating or hot-water due to the lack of registration but in many cases can be overcome.
That is send in an engineer to fully check test and inspect the appliance and its condition and provide a report for the records.
Most buyers would be willing to accept it provided the appliance is fully serviced and properly. but yes you are correct it could cause problems.

Even the most stupid mistake that infringes the legislation would deem the whole thing dangerous. Although expanding foam is seen ok by many, it is not to be used around a Flue as it can be seen as obstructing inspection of the flue and you are in trouble.

As i also mentioned, there should be no compromise to getting a GSR engineer to check the work and record it in the database. I want to see the Legislation extended to include only a GSR engineer capable of plumbing in the Gas, as for plumbing in a fresh water supply, well this i have to show some concern about. The GSR would for sure want to extend there presence to the entire scope of plumbing.
I have seen countless council property installations which do not use a double check valve to the fresh water supply yet GSR Engineers pass it. It is not within the scope of their job spec in fairness but back-feeding contamination into the fresh water feed is serious stuff.

Now water legislation has its own entire section and is a totally separate area from the GSR Engineer. It is a competent person again but does not have quite a substantial organisation for membership quite as much as the GSR.

Regardless once again, i can not stress out enough. the GSR and all aspects of a corporate organisation trying to enforce their ideas via the HSE and so on to the public is not the same as breaking the Law. That legislation is the law and regardless of the issues of what a solicitor within an estate agents says in what they request and that is provided the new buyers accept this is something else. It is not law it is just an acceptable practice and or a requirement one would wish for during a point of sale/purchase.

 

So from the HSE website which bit of

"Can I use a plumber to install the appliance and then have the gas work fitted by a Gas Safe registered engineer?
A non-registered person may carry out ‘wet work’, ie install water pipes and radiators for a heating system, but any work on the gas boiler itself and the final connection of the water pipework to the boiler, must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer ."

do you not understand as saying you must be approved?

Kind regards

 

DEVILS in the detail. "Can I use a plumber" so the person wanting the boiler installed is not the one installing it.

DIY = Do It Yourself. It does not mean get a DIYer, i mean how does that even make sense. I got a DIYer because i could not Do It Myself lol.

Find the question that says:

Can i install the wet work of the boiler MYSELF and get the GSR Engineer to plumb in the Gas work?


lol

 

Something I read last week was that if the work self employed people do has no health risk to anyone else then they are not subject to HSE regulations, there were exceptions.

 

Better still, if you are so confident you are right you show me where it states it. You obviously think you know it.

Kind regards

 

You can work on the wet side but all connections to the boiler must be by a GSR approved engineer.

Kind regards

 

Huu I already have.
Work in relation to a gas fitting
51
For the purposes of these Regulations, ‘work’ includes do-it-yourself activities,
work undertaken as a favour for friends and relatives, and work for which there is
no expectation of reward or gain, eg voluntary activity for charities. This means that
anyone carrying out such work must have the necessary competence, as required
by regulation 3(1). However, membership of an HSE approved class of persons
(under regulation 3(3)) is required only by businesses carrying out gas fitting work.
52
The definition of ‘work in relation to a gas fitting’ lists specific activities covered
by this term, but this list is not exhaustive and other operations may also comprise
‘work’. The definition is wide-ranging and includes activities that could affect in any
way the gas safety of a gas fitting (whether new or existing), and whether or not it
contains gas (eg replacement of combustion seals and appliance controls). In the
context of ‘work’, terms not otherwise defined in the Regulations (or in the HSW
Act 1974) bear their normal meaning.

This section has been taken from the hseni.gov.uk

http://www.hseni.gov.uk/l56_safety_in_the_installation_and_use_of_gas_systems_and_appliances.pdf

Also all this is relevant by reading the Legislation itself on the legislation.gov.uk

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2451/contents/made

I am not the crazy one here. I have proof and yes, although there is no part i can quote that defines without any doubt a GSR Engineer is the only person who can route, solder, connect and test the actual Gas supply feed to a installed boiler it should without doubt include that only a GSR person can do this.
No member of the public should be allowed to hacksaw into a pipe gas line. As scary as that sounds, i am sure most public DIYers would probably hacksaw into a gas pipe to T off a feed.

 

Not true, if one is expected to receive reward or gain for work done. Sounds like they got lucky...

All aspects of the HSE and enforcement by the GSR is very very relevant when it is business. This carries the full weight of the law behind it and the GSR have every power at their disposal to attack a self employed person(s) to this effect.

Cowboy plumbers watch-out and quality plumbers, you have competition... lol