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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To put these pictures into context, these photos where taken at a daycare centre where lots of staff, children and parents enter and leave everyday with no knowledge that the boiler is in a dangerous state. And just to make the point that even though the boiler was working correctly on the day we visited it might only take an exceptionally cold day to stop the flue from pulling properly thus allowing the products of combustion (carbon monoxide and other deadly nasties) to come back down the flue and enter the room. That’s a situation that will end in tears.

So you could say that people and carbon dioxide don’t mix but that’s not actually true and that’s the main problem. People and carbon monoxide DO mix and your body likes carbon monoxide much more that it does oxygen and will absorb as much CO as it can get. Well, as much as it can get until you turn blue from lack of oxygen and die that is.

So the boiler pictured above has been plugged up with the daily assortment of dust from the building and extra lint from the dryer, The dryer was pushed up tight against the front or the boiler when we arrived and was also plugging the lower air vent to the room. That was the least of the problems however as the other side of the same air vent was blocked off with a trampoline, various toy boxes and toys stacked up against it and the outside wall. The top of the boiler was stacked with ‘things to dry’ and when we removed the cover plates from he boiler we found all kinds of flammable material which had fallen inside and touching the top and sides of the heat exchanger.

To make matters worse the front vent of the boiler was completely plugged with lint (see the photo with the light shining through brighter on one side than the other), the back end of the boiler where the products of combustion exit and are sucked up the flue were heavily plugged up with debris and lint. The more fluff, lint and debris that collect on the sides of the flue the more difficult it is for the fumes to escape up the flue and make it outside.

After we removed the rubbish from around the boiler we stacked it up and took the last picture in the series. That’s a serious pile of debris and a record breaker! We hoovered out all of the air vents inside and outside of the building and re-assembled the boiler for the remainder of our safety checks. So the lesson here should be to check on your boiler yourself regularly for obvious issues such as debris piled on top or the fresh air vents plugged up with dust, debris, climbing plants or trampolines!. YOU DON’T NEED A GAS ENGINEER FOR THESE COMMON SENSE CHECKS. Once a year or as required get your boiler checked out by a Gas Safe Registered engineer who can test all the bits that you can’t. An extra 50 quid a year might just save someones life and keep you out of jail for corporate manslaughter. Fifty quid!!

Don’t be like this business which was really on the verge of causing some serious health issues with their staff and clients. And don’t be like the many customers I meet on a daily basis who actually BRAG about not having their boiler serviced for 10 or 15 years! Unbelievable!

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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.

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The first picture shows the fresh air supply vent for this homes back boiler.  The screen behind the vent is not allowed for the very reason shown here. It’s clogged up with paint, dust and debris. The second photo is what the vent should and now looks like.

I’ve not met many people who take the fresh air vent seriously. I had one client boast a few years ago that she plugged the vent in her property and then hung a radiator over it. She was not amused when I gave her a choice of re-establishing the vent or having her gas turned off. Incidentally she has not used us since. Better to bitter and alive then happy and dead though. I’ve been to many more homes the fresh air vent has been plugged up and plastered over during a renovation! Now this may not seem like a big deal. The vents do cause a nasty draft at times and it’s near impossible to be comfortable in a room where the vent points straight to outside especially in the minus 20 degree weather we had last year. Problem is this. If that vent is missing then your flue may not function properly and you may indeed die from carbon monoxide poisoning and them’s the facts, Jack!

The science of flues is simple. In order for a flue to work it must be able to remove the products of combustion which are the fumes from the fire. The fumes go up and out of the terminal at the top of the chimney. Simple enough. Hot air rises so in the most simplistic way this works without a fire too. Warm air from a room heated with nothing more than the sun will drag air up the flue and deposit it outside.  Problem is this. If there a vacuum in the room and I don’t mean a Hoover! If there is no way for fresh air to replace the air that’s going out through the flue then a couple of things are going to happen. Firstly the fire is going to light with the oxygen that’s already in the room. The fire is going to burn with the oxygen already in the room. As not enough fresh air (oxygen) can get in then the flow of air and the products of combustion will stall and start to back up down the flue and spill back into the room. Depending on how cold the air is outside this can happen even on a flue in good condition as well. Most gas fires and back boilers have safety devices to stop them from working if there is a lack of oxygen however it doesn’t stop you from breathing in the carbon monoxide in the meantime and if the devices aren’t sensitive enough you could die before the fire goes out.

So back to our fresh air vent. It’s there for a reason. Fresh air means fresh oxygen. In today’s homes the vents are even more important as older houses had drafty floor boards and windows as well as air bricks peppered around the perimeter. There was no shortage of fresh air (a.k.a. adiabatic air flow). As homes improved over the years things like laminate flooring and underlay can plug up all the air flow that used to come through the drafty floor. Double glazing now stops all air flow around the windows and sealed outside doors stop the flow there. Even conservatories can dramatically change the way a house breathes. With all of that air flow dampened down you create a sealed environment. Poison gas can’t escape and no fresh air gets in. It’s only a matter of time before that room is inhabitable.

So before the heating season really kicks off get your gas fire (back boiler, coal and wood fires follow the same rules!) serviced. Make sure that service includes a flue flow test (a smoke bomb up the flue to check for leaks throughout the property) and that the ventilation is good (no shrubs, bugs, paint or other substances) with nothing is blocking the fresh air vent. A Gas Safe Registered engineer will know what to look for in every circumstance so always trust them. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE ELSE!!!!

If your current service engineer can’t show you a valid ID card then he/she/it isn’t Gas Safe Registered. You might as well hire a BABOON! You’ll have about the same chance of getting it done safely and correctly. Here’s a short video on what the ID card MUST look like.

More question?  Gas Safe Register Website – Click Here or ring them on 0800 408 5500

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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!

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So as seen from the pictures above the black stains that are emanating from the top of this fire are sure signs of spillage. Further to that issue we were also informed that the fire had recently been serviced and the ‘man’ who serviced it told her she should only use the fire for short periods of time. WHAT!?!? As I asked more questions I was  informed that the fire had originally been installed by a relative who was not a gas fitter. I slid the fire forward to look into the catchment space behind the fire and found that it was full of soot and had not been cleaned out in a long while. Also, and only another gas fitter would probably notice this; there were no signs that a flue flow test had been carried out recently. In other words there is usually signs of spent smoke pellets or that the soot has been disturbed if someone had actually been servicing the fire properly.

So on to the gas pipe which rises out of the crazy paving style hearth. It is a chrome gas tube and in most instances would not be an issue. In this case however the question that begs to be asked is where is the other end of the tube hooked up? As you can’t solder chrome pipe the assumption being made right now is that it has been fed into an old gas restrictor which is dangling under the floorboards or that it has been compression fitted to the old gas pipe work. Either way it is likely wrong, unsafe making it prone to leakage. There is also no isolation valve or any other way to turn this fire off in case of emergency or gas leak.

So we have a long list of safety issues to sort out. To start with the fire has been made unusable until we can remove it and install the new one. Of course we won’t install the new one until such time as all of the other issues we’ve found have been dealt with.

The building regulations are not a list of items put in place to complicate peoples lives and make life miserable. The rules are put in place to keep the general public safe. Please remember that the general public also includes your children, your mother your sisters and brothers. No one wants to see someone killed due to faulty equipment or faulty installation.  As I have pointed out to many unqualified gas fitters who install gas appliances over the years. How do you check to see if the appliance is working correctly? With no test equipment and no training you better hope the appliance was not manufactured on a Monday or Friday! I’ve had brand new appliances that have to be sent back or have parts replaced due to safety issues.

The gas fire shown here is being used by an infirmed elderly lady. She has no other source of heat except this fire in the rear lounge and another gas fire in the front lounge. Both fires are well over twenty five years and full of soot, hair and dust. She’s been told that they are safe and believes the person who told her this. We’ve told her the truth. This fire is not safe! It is disconnected.

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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.

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While I was reviewing these pictures I recalled another property that we visited last year that had a similar issue. So on my departure from the kitchen work I went for a small walk and found twelve more situations that included everything from flues poking out from directly beneath a window, some that are too close to air bricks and lots that are improperly hooked up for the condensation drainage.

I’d really like to say that installing a boiler isn’t rocket science but it’s not far off. The vast majority of people including many plumbers and builders that I’ve met seem to think that installing a boiler into a property is like hanging a picture. Find the easiest location that the homeowner likes, drill a few of holes, screw up a bracket, core out a hole for the flue and you’re on your way. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Working out where to mount a boiler and just as importantly what type of a boiler (combination, system, conventional) is required has more to do with physics than aesthetics. There is nothing more dishonest than allowing an uneducated homeowner to make a decision that is unsafe, uneconomical or unworkable. Lots of UN words here.

Having repaired the damage caused by many poor installations in the past I can already guess what happened with most of the boilers in our pictures. The old boiler was floor mounted and built with some sort of covering or cabinet so that it didn’t look too intrusive. When it came time to change the boiler or kitchen a fatal decision was made. Install the new wall mounted boiler up higher so it can be hidden by an upper cupboard or lined up with the cupboards. Not always a sound idea and there are ways around that such as plume management kits. Tye outcome of the poor decision making process sows in our pictures. The first flue comes out directly underneath a window, an openable window,  and contravenes the gas regulations. The property next door has the flue mounted up REALLY high. Looks better until you look up underneath of the concrete lintel which hangs down about a foot and thus creates a nice dead spot where the flue gases can lazily hang about giving them enough time to be sucked back into the air brick just above the flue as seen in the final snap. As a reference here is another shot that we spotted last year on the next street over.

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The original floor mounted boilers were what is called a balanced flue boiler. The big square flue brings in fresh air from the outside (the outside ring of the flue) and then once the oxygen from that air is used to aid in the combustion of the gas the exhaust is sent out through the same flue (the inside ring of the flue). The regulation BS5440-2000 (amended) state that the the flue should be a minimum of 300mm below the window or air brick for a boiler with a net heat input of 14 to 70kW. In lay terms it means that all three of the boilers pictured here too close to windows and air bricks. Look for option ‘A’ on our house diagram and then match that up with the terminal location ‘A’ in the chart.

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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.

Upon arrival we were met at the rear entry to the house. The balanced flue boiler was running, the back door to the kitchen was open and the products of combustion were entering the kitchen like metal to a magnet! IN the following pictures the misty look to the photos is the exhaust entering the kitchen. If you couldn’t see it you could certainly taste it! I immediately pointed out that I would have to shut off the boiler for their own safety.  I was then told that they had just purchased the property a few days earlier and were in the process of decorating before they moved in.

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The boiler was turned off and isolated and I issued a Warning Notice and affixed an UNSAFE TO USE notice to the boiler. While we discussed various solutions to sort out the situation the phone rang. It was Mr. Homeowner who asked how things were going. Not good she explained and after a bit I took the phone to explain the situation.  So after my lengthy explanation, explanation of measurement issues all backed up in print by my trusty CORGI Gas Regs book so I can show them visually what I’m talking about the home owner then tries to convince me, and himself, that everything is alright. Can you move just the flue? No. Well, just ignore the boiler for now and get the cooker installed! No. It’s not really an issue with us, the boiler has been there for years. No. We don’t want to look at this just now. No. No. No!

It won’t matter what you throw at me unless the suggestion is to move the boiler to a safe location. My answer will be no. I’m not trying to be hard to get along with. I’m not being obtuse because I’ve had a bad day. I’m not taking out a personal vendetta against boilers because my pet cat was crushed by a falling boiler when I was seven years old. I don’t enjoy telling anyone that the house they just bought a few days earlier contains a boiler which is pumping carbon monoxide and other products of combustion through the back door. I know it’s going to cost them cold hard cash. But like it or not; if the situation is unsafe I’m going to disable the appliance. And that’s exactly what I did.

So in the end we didn’t get the call back to install the new cooker. We certainly didn’t get a call to thank us for keeping them safe and preventing the poisoning of themselves and their children. I suspect we won’t get any callback from them at all. This boiler was unsafe and as you can see in the pictures was pumping carbon monoxide into the house. I’m happy that we did our job, I’m happy that if they get a new boiler and don’t ignore my advice they’ll be safe.

In closing however I would like to know why the surveyor didn’t catch this BLAZING error. I mean common! The flue is practically mounted on the back door! This isn’t some gas fitters minor issue that only a gas fitter would spot and then discuss with his other geeky gas fitter mates while drinking a crappy cup of tea at the nearest Parts Centre. This is a blatant disregard for the safety of the purchaser.

For those of you that haven’t yet hit the back button I’ll clarify the situation. The boiler at the home is an older balanced flue boiler. The big square flue brings in fresh air from the outside (the outside ring of the flue) and then once the oxygen from that air is used to aid in the combustion of the gas the exhaust is sent out through the same flue (the inside ring of the flue). The regulation BS5440-2000 (amended) state that the the flue should be a minimum of 600mm for a boiler with a net heat input of 14 to 70kW. In lay terms it means that OUR boiler is about 550mm or around half a metre too close to that door. Look for option ‘C’ on our house diagram and then match that up with the terminal location ‘C’ in the chart.

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This boiler is unsafe.

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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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So as the boiler to flue connection wasn’t safe in the first place (due to slits cut in the tube) the added escaping hot corrosive gases made the connection even worse. In turn the inner flue was leaking gas into the outer flue which is where fresh air is brought into the boiler to allow for correct combustion. As the fresh air supply was compromised the air/gas mix would have been incorrect which caused further issues due to the sooting up within the boiler.

So back to the history of the boiler. It was only a year or so ago when  a company was employed to do some fencing and for some reason one of the fencing blokes pulled the flue out of the wall. As I mentioned earlier the flue was not exactly a tight fit. So the homeowner called in a gas fitter who then refits the corroded and ill fitting flue without declaring the boiler as Immediately Dangerous (ID). The damaged flue should never have been refitted!

The gas fitter should have viewed a flue with such obvious signs of distress as an indication that something had gone wrong. The proper solution would have been to order up a new flue if still available or the boiler should have been replaced at that time.

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Bad – Boiler Installers

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The good news was that there were no leaks or other gas escapes. The bad news was that the high gas bills were due to an old boiler which had been installed without a programmer or room stat of any sort. When I had asked about a room thermostat I was told that the installers had told the home owner that this particular could not have a room thermostat. What a load of rubbish! I showed her the installation booklet and there it was on page 7.

The worse news however was that during the safety check I noticed that the flue had been installed directly underneath two air bricks and at a forty five degree angle to another one beside it. To make matters even worse, the air bricks filtered directly back into the bedroom where the boiler was located. The photo isn’t clear but the dark line just under the shelf is a screened air brick inside the cupboard.

With the flue less than the required 300mm beneath the opening in the fabric of the building flue gas could be sucked back into the building. The situation is more likely than one would think. If a wind were blowing at the front of this house a negative pressure could be generated at the back of the property causing flue gases to be sucked back into the closet and into the bedroom.

At this point in time the fix for this is to seal the air bricks. The situation however should never have happened in the first place. Clearly these installers were cowboys who didn’t care about the homeowners or their safety.

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Bad – Kitchen Fitters

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The reason I couldn’t find the boiler is apparent in the pictures. The boiler is behind the kitchen units! When I opened up the cupboards and drawers there was still no access to the boiler. There is a gas pipe which runs outside from the chimney breast and little else for clues. The little air vent attached to the plinth is supposed to supply combustion air for the boiler. The problem is that know one knows what size the boiler is or what make the boiler is. Hell, I couldn’t even see the boiler without dismantling the kitchen! Clearly the kitchen fitter and owner saw no problem with this installation and have been fortunate not to kill anyone at the house.

We are investigating where to relocate the new boiler to an area where it’s safe and maintainable.

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Bad DIY Gas Fitter…

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We capped the gas and did not mount the new fire until we could speak with the home owner who as told us that we can continue the job by removing the surround to gain access. At the same time we’ll be removing the ‘wooden’ trim seen near the bottom of the fire and if everything checks out we will reinstall the new closure plate and then the fire will be fit correctly and safely.

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Bad Heating Installers

So from start to finish how many issues can you spot? Click each photo for enlargement and an explanation of the broken rgulations. See any other regulations that have been broken? Let me know.

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On a daily basis I drive by five properties where flues have been installed incorrectly; never bricked up on the outside. There seems to be no shortage of either DIYers who just don’t know or care about what they are doing, or a large group of central heating engineers who don’t know or care what they are doing, or groups of trained individuals that just can’t be bothered to plan ahead. No matter how you slice it these flue installers are swines!

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