Hello,
To introduce myself, me and my partner have just bought our first house - a 30's bungalow which is a bit of a project (hence why we could actually afford it). There's tonnes to do, including rewiring, minor building work, plumbing etc etc, and I intend to do as much as possible myself (a) because I want to, and (b) for financial reasons. Among the work will be the installation of a new combi boiler as I never intend to turn the old back-boiler back on and would like to loose the tanks in the loft for a future loft conversion. I'm currently in the process of submitting my building notice for everything, and my local building control guys (bedford) are being uselessly slow answering my questions. Thought I might ask a few here...
1. I dont really want to, and understand legally I pretty much can't, do any gas fitting myself. In keeping with my goal of doing as much as possible myself, however, I do intend to do the water plumbing side of things myself (I'm a mechanical engineer in a hydraulic engineering consultancy outfit and have access to all the leak/pressure testing equipment i might care to use in this endeavor, as well as the competence) as well as mount the boiler to the wall etc, and call on a CORGI to plumb and connect gas, and to commission the boiler. Is this going to be acceptable to a CORGI? Is plumbing the gas and commissioning enough for the CORGI to have 'installed' the boiler and be able to give me the right bits of paper without contravening any regs? I'd essentially just be supplying labour.
2. Does this need to go on my building notice or not? (this one's killing me
). Somewhere on the planningportal website it has words to the effect of 'if it's going to be installed by a competent person you normally dont need to involve building control'. But then regulation 13 says :
Part G3 specifically mentions a combi boiler as an example of an unvented hot water storage system, which would suggest it would have to go on the building notice whoever fits it.
But then Part G3 also says that an unvented hot water storage system with a storage capacity less than 15 litres is exempt from the requirements of G3. I'm no expert but would that not make your average combi exempt from G3 since they dont have storage vessels, do they? Being exempt from G3 would then exclude it from Reg 13 part 4 above.
Is it as simple as 'well a combi boiler does have more than 15l in it at any time'? I mean i know they have expansion vessels - is that what does it? Ah what the heck...
2. Assuming the combi has to go on the building notice due to reg 13, I understand I have to declare it's make and model, the body approving it, and the body approving the fitter. Now at this time I haven't yet decided on the make and model, but needless to say it will be band A and fully approved etc etc (looking at Vokera at the mo as a good compromise between price and quality/good repute), and [mostly] installed by a CORGI. Is it enough to stick words to that effect on the notice or do I really have to go shopping for the boiler already? I just want the d**m notice in so I can get on with other stuff!
Any advice would be much appreciated! Getting my head round electrical regs was easy compared to this (just a shame my local building control dont seem to know the regs, but that's another story...). Cheers,
Liam
To introduce myself, me and my partner have just bought our first house - a 30's bungalow which is a bit of a project (hence why we could actually afford it). There's tonnes to do, including rewiring, minor building work, plumbing etc etc, and I intend to do as much as possible myself (a) because I want to, and (b) for financial reasons. Among the work will be the installation of a new combi boiler as I never intend to turn the old back-boiler back on and would like to loose the tanks in the loft for a future loft conversion. I'm currently in the process of submitting my building notice for everything, and my local building control guys (bedford) are being uselessly slow answering my questions. Thought I might ask a few here...
1. I dont really want to, and understand legally I pretty much can't, do any gas fitting myself. In keeping with my goal of doing as much as possible myself, however, I do intend to do the water plumbing side of things myself (I'm a mechanical engineer in a hydraulic engineering consultancy outfit and have access to all the leak/pressure testing equipment i might care to use in this endeavor, as well as the competence) as well as mount the boiler to the wall etc, and call on a CORGI to plumb and connect gas, and to commission the boiler. Is this going to be acceptable to a CORGI? Is plumbing the gas and commissioning enough for the CORGI to have 'installed' the boiler and be able to give me the right bits of paper without contravening any regs? I'd essentially just be supplying labour.
2. Does this need to go on my building notice or not? (this one's killing me
). Somewhere on the planningportal website it has words to the effect of 'if it's going to be installed by a competent person you normally dont need to involve building control'. But then regulation 13 says :Part G3 specifically mentions a combi boiler as an example of an unvented hot water storage system, which would suggest it would have to go on the building notice whoever fits it.
But then Part G3 also says that an unvented hot water storage system with a storage capacity less than 15 litres is exempt from the requirements of G3. I'm no expert but would that not make your average combi exempt from G3 since they dont have storage vessels, do they? Being exempt from G3 would then exclude it from Reg 13 part 4 above.
Is it as simple as 'well a combi boiler does have more than 15l in it at any time'? I mean i know they have expansion vessels - is that what does it? Ah what the heck...
2. Assuming the combi has to go on the building notice due to reg 13, I understand I have to declare it's make and model, the body approving it, and the body approving the fitter. Now at this time I haven't yet decided on the make and model, but needless to say it will be band A and fully approved etc etc (looking at Vokera at the mo as a good compromise between price and quality/good repute), and [mostly] installed by a CORGI. Is it enough to stick words to that effect on the notice or do I really have to go shopping for the boiler already? I just want the d**m notice in so I can get on with other stuff!
Any advice would be much appreciated! Getting my head round electrical regs was easy compared to this (just a shame my local building control dont seem to know the regs, but that's another story...). Cheers,
Liam
