Whilst I am not qualified a gas safety engineer by any means, I am involved in medicines regulation as a profession and so am used to reading legal documents. Out of interest I've read the gas safety regulations 1998. I've copied in what I think the relevant bits.....
2. (1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—
“appropriate fitting” means a fitting which—
(a)has been designed for the purpose of effecting a gas tight seal in a pipe or other gasway;
(b)achieves that purpose when fitted; and
(c)is secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, against unauthorised opening or removal;
(2) For the purposes of these Regulations—
(a)any reference to installing a gas fitting includes a reference to converting any pipe, fitting, meter, apparatus or appliance to gas use;
5. (1) No person shall install a gas fitting unless every part of it is of good construction and sound material, of adequate strength and size to secure safety and of a type appropriate for the gas with which it is to be used.
I would say that a socket-formed pipe made by the installer on site complies with all of the above. For information, when I called the original installer last night he said he was recently inspected on a new boiler install and the inspector said "oh you use these fittings, the are not so commonly used now", but he passed it all no problems.
Unfortunately the service engineer who came to my house yesterday was going to issue an ID if he saw these fittings to my boiler, and also said he usually finds the pipework inadequate to about 60% of the condensing boilers he services. He blamed this on most gas safe engineers being cowboys! Well, I won't be calling him again as he seemed more interested in trying to fault the install rather than actually servicing the boiler!
To answer CBF he measured the 2.5mbar at the pipework. He put in a fitting to do it.
2. (1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—
“appropriate fitting” means a fitting which—
(a)has been designed for the purpose of effecting a gas tight seal in a pipe or other gasway;
(b)achieves that purpose when fitted; and
(c)is secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, against unauthorised opening or removal;
(2) For the purposes of these Regulations—
(a)any reference to installing a gas fitting includes a reference to converting any pipe, fitting, meter, apparatus or appliance to gas use;
5. (1) No person shall install a gas fitting unless every part of it is of good construction and sound material, of adequate strength and size to secure safety and of a type appropriate for the gas with which it is to be used.
I would say that a socket-formed pipe made by the installer on site complies with all of the above. For information, when I called the original installer last night he said he was recently inspected on a new boiler install and the inspector said "oh you use these fittings, the are not so commonly used now", but he passed it all no problems.
Unfortunately the service engineer who came to my house yesterday was going to issue an ID if he saw these fittings to my boiler, and also said he usually finds the pipework inadequate to about 60% of the condensing boilers he services. He blamed this on most gas safe engineers being cowboys! Well, I won't be calling him again as he seemed more interested in trying to fault the install rather than actually servicing the boiler!
To answer CBF he measured the 2.5mbar at the pipework. He put in a fitting to do it.