BG v CORGI.

ormus

heres the story.
lady friend of ours has just rented a house in liverpool.
gas boiler is old but ok. came with a new gas cert issued by a local corgi man.
she wasnt happy with the smell from the boiler so called in BG to check it out. they condemned it and put the red sticker on it.

lady friend got the landlord in and said what is going on? landlord arrived with the corgi man and checked it again. corgi man said its old but perfectly ok and issued a new gas cert.

so the point is, is it just BG up to the old trick of condemning everything? or is the corgi man on the take? or which one of them is totally incompetent?
and if the public cannot trust the corgi system, why do we need it?

illzlee

what you have is two different types of plumber.

The corgi man makes his money to the landlord by letting the occasional non-safety issue slide and look at the whole picture rather than does-it-conform-to-the-letter-of-current-regulation.

British gas will look at a boiler and say "this does not conform to current regulations" and in some instances (as this one) condemn and switch off.

A large company like BG could not be seen to not do things exactly by the book.

Do you know why it was condemned? could be a ventilation issue if it smells... & very easy to fix.

never_enough

She can check that he is *still* registered with Corgi. I must say I don't have a huge amount of faith in BG & would be more inclined to believe the corgi guy.... However in this situation I would want another (independent) corgi person to check it out, you can't mess around with gas.

silvercar

More likely that the BG man was trying to get commission on a new boiler.

economiser

It shouldn't smell really. It must be either gas or much more probably products of combustion. What sort of flue is it? I used to have a natural fllue boiler with a draught diverter and did get a certain amount of downdraught and flue gas smell when the wind blew strongly from a certain direction.

Razor

On the paperwork issued by Bg it will give the reason they condemned it.

Not possible to say whether the appliance should be condemned or not without being there.

Instead of suggesting that the respective engineers are incompetant or willing to risk peoples lives for money perhaps you should advise your friend to get a Corgi inspector involved. That is the way the system works.

Not all gas engineers are robbers, bandits, crooks or dolts.

There are some very good, experienced engineers who give up their freetime on this and other sites to help people if they can, (I don't count myself in their number I learn a lot from sites like this), it would be a shame if the constant references to ripoffs, poor workmanship etc caused them to not bother giving advice in future.

Were you scared by the gasman as a child?

lexie55_2

I agree with Razors comments, quite a few knowledgeable people on this site, who are Corgi registered.

Pssst

I wonde what the nature of the smell was? Come to think of it,could she positively say that it was eminating from the boiler or as a result of its operation? Either way,if the smell IS from the boiler then it could either be burnt or unburnt gas. Either way it needs investigating.
There are situations which may be deemed immediately dangerous and also not conforming to law/regulation. Below that there are grey areas which may be the subject of some debate amongst engineers. Experienced engineers know what is acceptable.

I always say that you must be able to leave someones house and feel happy in yourself. If you can do that,then all is well.