Does anyone know the max capacity of a Domestic Gas Meter?

[mickyg]

I had a job recently where the gas meter was undersized for the proposed demand. They just swapped over the meters as it was deemed the incoming supply was sufficient for the bigger meter(u16). Don't know the cost as developer paid. Good old architect missed that one as they do.....

As for how this came about....Firstly the fire and boiler alone is over your meters capacity, the 2nd boiler takes it way above. So the burning question is.....who ins gods name installed the boilers?? If they were registered they should be reported as there work has created a potentially dangerous situation.

 

[Agile]

I do realise that people with too much money are often apparently happy to give it to others to spend it for them.

My approach would have been to examine what the existing boiler is really doing.

Surely its not working at 64 kW for 24 hours a day?

If its to heat a swimming pool then my solution would have been to let the existing boiler do the pool heating overnight when its not needed to heat the house.

If the gas bill is less than about £20,000 pa then the boiler has some spare capacity!

Tony

 

[tamz]

With everything burning full you could use 9 m2/hr and even without the fire you are just short of 8.5 and your Remeha is on the line on its own. This has been undersized from the start and should have been picked up when fitting the Remeha

SIZE is depth 34.6 cm height 28.3cm width 35cm

If it is an Actaris.

Elster BKG-10's are a bit higher but less deep. 320 h x 218 d x 334 w but you still have a 1 1/4" reg on top or a med press rig even bigger.

20mm would do it if MP but not with LP which would need 25 min.
£15000 seems excessive for the work. You can choose to do all the spade work yourself if on your own land and just get them to fit the pipe and meter.
Phone again and ask for a guide price to fit a new service x meters long with a U16. This will give you a ball park then get back on to the original guy and moan.

 

[Agile]

With everything burning full you could use 9 m2/hr and even without the fire you are just short of 8.5 and your Remeha is on the line on its own.

Dont you really mean 9 m³/hour ?

 

[tamz]

Of course i did. Might needs new glasses or smaller fingers

 

[Agile]

Or to get to bed earlier and have more sleep?

 

[tamz]

That's true

 

[lifesagasman]

the installation has to be assessed at maximum load, and somehow i can't imagine maintaining a 1mb drop working pressure when the meter is already 50% overloaded. i have a mental picture of 22mm inst pipework.
at 65K + 7Kw the first boiler + fire was a contravention of regs. adding 29KW was nothing short of ludicrous.
get your money back from the installers and use it towards a new service.
gas-safe would be quite interested in this one

 

[Agile]

Our main house boiler is 65kw - a Remeha Quinta 65

I think that the gas people who have replied have overlooked the fact that the INPUT power will actually be about 70 kW !

Tony

 

[lifesagasman]

becomes academic really, bud, at 64K the meter has maxed out and isn't adequate. say 70KW for the boiler, add7x0.6 for the fire and the whole lot becomes an illegal fit. i'd love to know what the working pressure is with both boilers full on...

 

[tamz]

Its got to be below 15 at the meter

 

[lifesagasman]

scary stuff...

 

[Beverlyp24]

Thank you so much for all your help, I am learning fast! To answer some of your questions:

The reason for the second boiler fit, is that my husband wanted a games room - can't understand why myself, could have spent the money better on a new wardrobe! This is a detached building situated about 5 metres from the main house and actually the location of the Remeha 65.

The Remeha 65 was fitted five years ago when the mains gas was installed into the property. I have all the Transco paperwork, which is how I know it is medium pressure and the pipework is 63mm on the road. It then runs for 125metres at 32mm, then has two branches of 20mm pipe leading to the house around 5 metres length and the old groundsman cottage around 20 metres away. Out of interest, on the original Transco spec, for the installation it estimates the house demand at 80Kw and yet, they seem to have fitted a meter not capable of delivering this.

We don't live in a mansion, honest and I don't think the Remeha is working at full capacity as our gas bills are not big. There is no swimming pool or any other big power sucker.

The second boiler was fitted by our plumber / heating engineer and he is gas safe registered, although I do understand the comments made and I think he should have picked this up.

I have asked Eon, whether we can have a separate meter fitted to the games room boiler; they are not keen, saying they are not sure if the pipework will support it.

I also wondered if the Remeha could run the radiators in the games room but was told by the plumber at the time that this was not possible as you could not run heating pipes outside in case they froze.

If you need any further information, just let me know!

Thank you so much!!

 

[Agile]

Based on what you say you must live in a pretty big house or the boiler was seriously over sized when it was fitted.

However, what you say is not consistent. The Remeha is ALREADY in the games room building so any risk of freeezing pipes is already present !

I dont see what difference in respect of freezing there is regardless of the Remeha powering the rads or any other boiler you had fitted there. Can you explain that? Very odd!

I am always suspicious of RGIs choosing to maximise the amount of work that they do irrespective of the best and cheapest option.

Tony

 

[Beverlyp24]

Sorry, bad explanation. The remeha is in the main house - utility room, it is just its location that is about 5 metres from the games room.

When I asked about using the Remeha to run the extra rads in the games room I was told this was not possible as the heating pipes could not run outside - to bridge the gap to the games room, as they may freeze, hence why we had to buy another boiler for the games room.

Hope this helps!