DIY GAS disasters waiting to happen.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Easy Life
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Before I start I am a competent diy-er however I would not touch gas so got a Gas Safe guy out to run a new gas pipe from meter to gas hob, he came with recommendations from other trade persons. Called him back after a day saying I could smell gas, he tested and couldn’t find anything, then the other day (Possibly a couple of weeks after fitting) we had very very strong smell of gas so called Transco (Or whatever they are called now) who sent a guy out said gas was pouring out took him 2 mins to find that one of the nuts was not tightened.

I’m not having a go at the plumber or any other plumbers as all are human (Well most) but its just goes to show that gas safe/corgi does not instantly mean the individual will make a mistake.

Olly
 
This issue is not as black and white as it may appear.  Certainly incompetent fitting is to be strongly discouraged, but I am not convinced that the 'closed shop' is the answer.  As one contributor has said, more information and reasons given is likely to be just as productive of safety.  Further, how many explosions have you read about only to see that ' British Gas was working on the system at the time' ? Quite a number over the years.  Compare that with the number of explosions/poisonings that you have read about for DIY installations; I've never seen any.

The other year a couple died in their Council home near to us immediately after the regulatory check and maintenance by Corgi fitters contracted to the council.   I once accidentally pierced a gas supply.  (It was run embedded in the plaster in a most unexpected position). I was attempting to fit a picture hook - Bovis Homes, incidentally.  I called British Gas.  The fitter saunterd in smoking a cigarette.  I queried the safety of this to be told 'You've turned off at the meter, so should be OK'.  He then got out a blow lamp lit up and dobbed some solder over the hole I had inadvertently made.  Well we survived, but it seemed a bit gung ho to me and may account for some of the other BG incidents.

More recently I had occasion to use a Corgi fitter for our campervan LPG installation.  He made an absolute pig's ear of the pipework and we had a couple of leaks which he tried to convince me was my imagination.  He reluctantly produced his instrument, a handwash soap bottle with some domestic solution, and then found that there were indeed leaks.  These he tackled with a pair of Stilsons on my poor 8mm fittings, not making any attempt even to stop the fitting from rotating under this attack.  I diplomatically persuaded him to use a spanner on the backnut  and check the olives which he reluctantly did.  I am not suggesting that all gas fitters are like the examples I've given, but it does illustrate that having a certificate is not the complete solution and that information and properly trained people is better.  He incidentally, I subsequently learned, had just been made redundant in Leeds because his firm had employed instead several fitters (calibre unknown) from Poland as these were cheaper.
 
Hallelujah. Have you noticed how you go straight to the end of this thread when you click on it now - WOW, what a forum!  ***cough***

Anyways, nicely put, wgand.

The law seems pretty much ok as it stands - if you know what you are doing, take care with the job, and test it afterwards, you'll be ok.

If you don't, and cock it up, then the full force of the law should rightly descend on you. Just as if you fuuuued up someone's car brakes through incompetence, or any other safety issue that's remotely similar.
 
I can remember when I was a apprentice plumber (quite a few years ago now) I had to solder fittings on the copper hot and cold supply pipes leading to the sink and running right alongside was a live gas pipe.

I was quite confident doing this until another plumber unerved me by saying "You want to be careful soldering that, natural gas can be dangerous stuff"!

I shut my eyes (sqinting) and lit the blowlamp and with my hand shaking got on with the job of soldering the h&c pipes (half expecting to be blown up at anytime)!!

Just in case anyone's wondering heat dosen't effect gas that's inside a pipe.
 
I have seen the Destroy It Yourself muppets fitting Gas Air Ratio applainces and they don't have the FGA to set them up. Another was the Bodge and Quit Catalytic Gas fired, they feel unwell, the fire kept going out and the alarm bought to them by the parents kept going off. These are the one which wreck their own burner bed and HSE and Trading standards are doing nothing about.

When a few more go off to the graveyard then the muppets who are  experts to lecture those who have undergone training.

Why don't they volunteer to fly relief flights to Libya and evac the Brits. No training or equipment needed there!
 
well mate to start a reaction we need to provide ionisation energy and it is the minimum energy required to start a reaction, in reaction some bond get broken and someget formed so if you heat gas molecules sufficiently they wil start bumping with each other more anoursmounly and at a surtain point they will have sufficient energy to reach that tempurature which will cause them burn.
so ch3(methaen or propane)  + o2 (oxygen from atmosphere)--------------will make co2 and h20 (water)
so if u remove oxygen from pipe surrounding and heat gas as much as you want then gas wont burn as it need oxygen so as you are heating gas pipe and if the inside gas get has mixture of air or oxygen to it then it will burn if there is no gas+oxygen mixture in it then it wont burn so you were safe as long as that pipe had no leek

simpppppllllllllllleeeeeeeeeee.
 
Have there been any DIY gas disasters since the original post?































I thought not. :)
 
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