2mb gas leak

NikonD7000

I have just had my annual gas safety certificate renewed for a rental property, which is managed by an agent. Although the gas safety certificate was issued, the plumber advised there is a 2mb gas leak, which is permissible as the law allows up to 4mb. The agent initially said it would cost £50 + VAT to rectify the problem, so I instructed them to go ahead. However they have now got back to me to say they had been unclear in the last email, as it should have said the cost would be £50 an hour plus VAT to investigate the leak, and then a further unspecified charge to rectify this once the cause has been identified.

Could anyone advise on how to proceed with this? There is a gas central heating boiler and a gas hob in the house.

Thanks
Simon

G_M

You have 3 choices

1) leave it in the hands of you agent to fix. they'll deduct the cost from rent receipts before paying you.

2) instruct them to do nothing, and ignore the issue (assuming they are right about it being within legal limits - I don't know)

3) instruct them to do nothing, and then arrange to get it investigated/fixed yourself using whoever you choose eg British Gas, or a local GasSafe engineer

edit: do you know if the leak is your side, or beyond the meter? If the far side, then Transco should fix it.

Mr.Generous

G_M wrote: »

You have 3 choices

1) leave it in the hands of you agent to fix. they'll deduct the cost from rent receipts before paying you.

2) instruct them to do nothing, and ignore the issue (assuming they are right about it being within legal limits - I don't know)

3) instruct them to do nothing, and then arrange to get it investigated/fixed yourself using whoever you choose eg British Gas, or a local GasSafe engineer

edit: do you know if the leak is your side, or beyond the meter? If the far side, then Transco should fix it.

The test is run with your pipework pressured up then the gas switched off at the supply. The drop of 2mb will be on your pipes, if its a faulty valve the pressure rises (called let-by).

2mb in a minute is a very small volume of gas, it could be anywhere. I've seen engineers test without waiting for pipework to cool and claiming a tiny leak where test done properly proves no leak. I've seen an engineer with a Manometor so dirty and marked you struggled to see the level, and he claimed a leak until we told him our engineer tested it with a digital high pressure Manometer that showed zero drop when he immediately back tracked.

I suppose what I'm saying is it may be worth getting a second person to check. The last guy who told us we had a drop on a property wanted paying to investigate, we knew that the day before it was tested as 100% tight at 20mb for 5 minutes (test requires 1 min) so we declined.

G_M

Mr.Generous wrote: »

The test is run with your pipework pressured up then the gas switched off at the supply. The drop of 2mb will be on your pipes, if its a faulty valve the pressure rises (called let-by).

2mb in a minute is a very small volume of gas, it could be anywhere. I've seen engineers test without waiting for pipework to cool and claiming a tiny leak where test done properly proves no leak. I've seen an engineer with a Manometor so dirty and marked you struggled to see the level, and he claimed a leak until we told him our engineer tested it with a digital high pressure Manometer that showed zero drop when he immediately back tracked.

I suppose what I'm saying is it may be worth getting a second person to check. The last guy who told us we had a drop on a property wanted paying to investigate, we knew that the day before it was tested as 100% tight at 20mb for 5 minutes (test requires 1 min) so we declined.

I can see we're in the company of man who knows his onions. Or his gas pipes.

:T

cjmillsnun

G_M wrote: »

edit: do you know if the leak is your side, or beyond the meter? If the far side, then Transco should fix it.

Just for clarification... Transco has not existed for over 10 years now. I work for one of the companies that was part of Transco and before that British Gas.

It will either be Cadent, Northern Gas Networks, Wales and West Utilities or SGN. However if there was an escape before the ECV this would not have been picked up on the GSE'S equipment (except perhaps his nose) that will be connected to the meter and will only detect a pressure drop on the consumer's side of the meter. As discussed above, it can detect let-by from a faulty ECV.

Riggyman

Get it fixed before there is an explosion?

cjmillsnun

a 2 milibar leak is next to nothing. Unless the property is not ventilated at all and the gas is allowed to build up to an explosive level, then it is safe. You will smell the gas (or more specifically the odourant added to the gas) way before you get anywhere close to the LEL.

OP Mr.Generous is correct in advocating a second opinion.

NikonD7000

Thanks for the responses. Fortunately I have a reliable plumber in the area that I can call upon. They are not the cheapest, which is why the agents do not use them, but they are reliable.

Thanks again for the advice.

bris

It's over 2 minutes, the law is you are allowed a 4mb drop over 2 minutes in old pipework (0 in new pipework). 1 minute let by, 1 minute to stabilise and 2 minutes for leakage. The law however also states that it's 4mb unless you can smell gas.


At 2mb I would get the gas detector out and check all joints that are accessible, leak detector spray to confirm. It's a 2 minute job as there are usually not very many accessible joints. Under boiler, cooker etc don't take long to check.


The real money is taking up floors, no way would you be doing that for 2mb.

AdrianC

NikonD7000 wrote: »

The agent initially said it would cost £50 + VAT to rectify the problem, so I instructed them to go ahead. However they have now got back to me to say they had been unclear in the last email, as it should have said the cost would be £50 an hour plus VAT to investigate the leak, and then a further unspecified charge to rectify this once the cause has been identified.

Common sense says that "£50+vat to find and fix the leak" is far more likely to be a per-hour cost, plus parts, than it is to be a flat fee for the entire job.

As for 2mb versus a 4mb permitted escape - again, common sense says that a gas leak which is only half of the permitted amount is going to be utterly trivial, simply because the permitted level is inevitably going to be trivially low.