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bewsh

Plumbers Arms member
Plumber
Gas Engineer
Jan 15, 2013
608
106
43
Pontypridd, Wales
Alright guys?

I went to a property today for a boiler breakdown, easy enough to diagnose as a faulty gas valve. Problem is, the house it pretty large, it has a 35kw combi (used as a system boiler), another 40kw conventional boiler, an andrews water heater and an aga, all connected to a U16 meter. Can't measure pipework as it comes off the meter for about 50cm and then disappears. But I'm going to guess that this is a commercial gas installation.

Question is, am I allowed to work on the boiler as I don't hold any commercial quals?
Also, how do you gas rate on a U16, the meter reading was only to 2 decimal places instead of the usual 3. Do you just multiply it by 10? So, if you have a difference of 0.10, then to work the gas rate out, do you multiply the 0.10 by 10, so you'd get .100?
 
It sounds as if it might be. Depends on installation volume.
As far as being allowed to work on it, I would guess not, if you've no commercial qualifications.
 
It might be comm because of the volume but if there are isolating valves before each appliance then you can work on the appliances.
 
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Sorry, if there are iso valves and test points then each section can be tested.
 
Even if the appliance can be isolated it'll still be a commercial installation because of the volume and the ***ulative input unless the boiler is fed from its own sub meter.
 
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If there is an isolation valve down stream and a test point then he will only be working on that section which has a lesser volume and can be treated as such. That the last I got from gsr.
 
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If it was a commercially qualified engineer on a commercial installation, you would be quite correct. I quite often will just test the section or appliances I'm working on.

However, a domestic engineer on a commercial installation is not qualified to work on that installation, however he sections it off.
He would probably not be insured either.
 
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Fortunately for most domestic engineers the GSR disagree with you, just for clarification I am only talking about perhaps 3-4 metres of pipework prior to the appliance. If there was a problem from meter to these then I would agree with you, but I am only talking about short sections prior to the appliance.
 
Fortunately for most domestic engineers the GSR disagree with you, just for clarification I am only talking about perhaps 3-4 metres of pipework prior to the appliance. If there was a problem from meter to these then I would agree with you, but I am only talking about short sections prior to the appliance.

Not surprisingly for gsr, you were misinformed. Check your regs. Test point or not, it only becomes a domestic installation downstream of a sub meter.
 
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If you have classified an installation as commercial, then it needs to be treated as such.
You need commercial qualifications and need to use commercial regulations.

Is I said in a previous post, we do section things sometimes but when we do, It is still viewed as a commercial installation.

I think the mix up here is down to whether you're calling this house installation, commercial or domestic ?

Croppie is right with the sub meter, that makes it a completely separate installation which should be assessed on its own merits.
 
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It looks like further investigation is required. Lol. To be continued.............
 
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