DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘Business Owners’
Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

It’s the time of year when boilers get switched on after a long break. It’s good practice to get your boiler serviced sometime before it needs to be switched on to make sure it’s safe. What is safe? Safe can mean a few things more than just the boiler itself. It relates to the room the boiler lives in, the air vents if required that allow the boiler to burn and dispose of the products of combustion properly and many other factors that you the end user may not fully understand. Here’s a good example of what could happen when you don’t service or inspect your boiler regularly.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘DIY Property Maintenance ‘

It’s getting on to the end of the year. No Really! If you don’t believe me take a walk through your town centre. Christmas sales and decorate remind us that the cold weather is coming. My interest in the seasonal change however is safety. The big burning ball of mostly hydrogen called the sun is around in shorter supply every day. Especially here in Oldham. Your heating systems and fires are starting to get turned onto supplement.  If you haven’t had your fire or boiler serviced recently here’s at least one good reason why you should. continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad Relatives Who Think They’re Gas Fitters
Regulations broken: The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 : PART B Gas Fittings – General Provisions(Qualification and supervision, Materials and workmanship, General safety precautions, Protection against damage, Existing gas fittings)/PART D Installation Pipework (Safe use of pipes, Enclosed pipes, Testing and purging of pipes)/PART E Gas Appliances (Gas appliances – safety precautions, Testing of appliances)

We received a call this week and asked for a price to replace a gas fire with a ‘like-for-like’ unit. Our response is always the same. We must always view the existing current gas fire and the unit intended to take it’s place before making further comment. When we viewed the existing fire the next day our immediate response was to disconnect it due to safety issues. The gas fire was spilling. In lay terms that means that the products of combustion are ‘spilling’ into the room. To further aggravate the issue the fire surround was covered with some sort of stick on vinyl product which had over the years also melted! continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Central Heating (Swines) ‘Engineers’

I spotted these flues next door to a property we were visiting to finalise a full kitchen refurbishment for early in the New Year. As I walked by several neighbouring properties I noticed that most of the boilers had been upgraded from older floor mounted balanced flue boilers to condensing room sealed boilers. Interestingly the flues all appeared to be poking out above, beside or below openings (windows, doors, air bricks) in the fabric of the building. In English that means that the products of combustion (which includes carbon monoxide and other nasty toxic chemicals)  can re-enter the living space where humans (who require oxygen) can breath them in. continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Central Heating Engineers

This story started when I was called to look at a job which required replacing an electric double oven with a gas double oven. The home owner wanted a price to complete the job and I couldn’t give them a quote over the phone so I said I’d pop over. The idea was to take a quick look, give them an estimate and then  book a time to do the work if they wanted to go ahead. Fate was however about to make us all more miserable than a rainy day in Oldham. continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Gas Fitters

While removing a boiler which was past its prime earlier this week we found the flue pictured in the photos below. The pitted and split aluminium tube on display is the inner tube which carries products of combustion (carbon monoxide and other nasties) out of the boiler and out of the house too. This flue however was not properly fastened to the top of the boiler so required NO effort to remove from the boiler or from the wall where it had the appearance of being firmly bedded in to the mortar.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad – Boiler Installers

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While picking up some electrical bits the other day my supplier, who is also a client of ours, asked me about his high energy bills. Specifically his gas bill seemed higher than usual. I suggested a Gas Safety Check also known as a CP12 to determine whether or not there was a leak in some pipe work or perhaps a badly burning boiler, fire or cooker.

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