Annular seal and pedants at BG

[victor meldrew]

As some may know i had some grief last week with the boiler and came close to the pedants at british gas capping my boiler off.

They gave me 2 at risk notices

1)ventilation or lack of which is being done next week(£50 notes by builder plus price of air brick) with the fitment of a shiny new black hole air brick

2)Annual seal not present ???

The pedant that serviced the boiler said it was sound and working correctly but left an at risk tag for the points above.

Now what confuses me is that all the house on my street are circa 1930's so i doubt many have this annular seal.my boiler is 8 years old and in perfect working order.

as i had a fault i was sidetracked into a homecare 200 agreement so i could get it fixed(it was cold last week or i would have not gone to BG)

they want to come back and finish the service but im worried they may cap it off for this annular seal nonsense

So plumbing Gurus can they cap my supply off due to a 1930's house missing an annular seal ?

or was it nearly capped for the ventilation issue ?

Is this a real safety issue or some pedantic recent law thats been passed


the cheeky ****er tried flogging my a carbon dioxide detector for 40 notes as well

i got the exact model off ebay for 25 notes btw

thanx in advance

 

[ollski]

The ventilation is At risk and should be turned off with your permission. The engineer should have offered you the fixed price upgrade of 66.00 to core drill you a new 100cm2 vent through the wall at a later date parts and labour included.It is due to a recent tightening of the existing ventilation regs.
80% of bbu's have no annular seal, this is not to current standards and should be brought to your attention so you can decide if you want to upgrade it or not.
The general point of ebay is to pick up goods cheaper than retail price so thats not really a surprise. If you do buy it for 38.00 of BG though they will honour the warranty and swap it straight over for a new one off the van if within the 5 year period.

 

[scatmanjohn]

ollski...if there is no annular seal and the pipework is not sealed as it passes through the side wall of the builders opening then as i understand it ,that is classed as "at risk."

any thoughts?

 

[ollski]

ollski...if there is no annular seal and the pipework is not sealed as it passes through the side wall of the builders opening then as i understand it ,that is classed as "at risk."

any thoughts?

Yes technically it is but seeing as you only need to fill either up with mineral wool then it's not something you would leave At Risk.

 

[chrishutt]

It is due to a recent tightening of the existing ventilation regs.

It's not a change to the regulations, but rather a change to the guidance given on unsafe situations procedure. Previously the guidance was so badly drafted that it appeared to allow ventilation way below standard to be classified as sub-standard rather than at risk, as it should have been.

A sub-standard or NCS (Not to Current Standards) classification requires no action, whereas an At Risk classification requires immediate action by the gas engineer.

 

[scatmanjohn]

True on most occations but you do get a few where you can't get your arm in to fill the gaps.

 

[ollski]

It's not a change to the regulations, but rather a change to the guidance given on unsafe situations procedure.

I know chris thats why I said tighten rather than change ....sometimes I try and think about what I'm writing.

 

[ChrisR]

[code:1]this is not to current standards and should be brought to your attention so you can decide if you want to upgrade it or not. [/code:1]

Bit of a nonsense this one, it seems to me. It's At Risk, unless the annulus "cannot practicably be sealed", in which case it's NCS. So it's less dangerous if it's difficult to do? What a piece of krap.
Also it leads to BG issuing notices offering to bring the NCS installation up to standard - though they' must already have declared it "Impracticable" otherwise it should have been AR!!

When I do Landlords Safety Records I usually decide that it's impractical to retro fit a seal with the boiler in place, if there's no sign of problems corgis will know about.
Some people maintain a solution is to stuff Rockwool up into the gap but I think that has been officially frowned upon.

This IS one area where you can "put one over" on a stroppy git landlord. Explain AR is just a turning off to cover your back, and that he can in fact turn it on again when you've gone. Usually get lots of winking and joy at his thought of getting away with something, even though it's the tenant's risk at stake, and illegal. Then when you've gone the stroppy git realises he doesn't know how to turn it on again - because you turned it off at the gas cock which he can't see and not just the knob on top. One step more insidious is to turn the pilot down to nothing of course. Then he spends hours trying to manipulate the gas cock, once he's found it, to no effect.