SSE gas engineer deliberately fitted dangerous part

bris

Sorry cant actually help with photos as all we can see is a flue piece. The photo would need to have been taken in situ before it was dismantled.
I am going to assume by the length of the inner piece there was a gap between two outer pieces and no bracket to seal them together? Or where the flue meets the 90 degree bend coming from the boiler and no bracket was attached leaving the gap the bracket would normally seal?


Obviously something was wrong but from those photos sorry I cant help. The HSE are duty bound to act on RIDDOR reports so I doubt that the BG engineer did one, it was probably an internal form he filled in.


Ps please make sure there is a suitable carbon monoxide detector in the property, preferably hard wired with a rechargeable backup battery built in.

lincroft1710

abc123456 wrote: »

I know what I am talking about when I mention negligence and fraud...that is what the Police do!

I would suggest you re-phrase this. It says something very different from what you intended to say.

--Tony--

I can't believe all the negative comments.

I am a gas engineer, maybe I can offer some information.

What we see in the picture is a balanced flue from a boiler, normally the products of combustion are blown outside through the inner pipe via a fan in the boiler, the space between the inner pipe and outer pipe is for fresh air to be drawn into the boiler for combustion.

The system is called balanced as it is all room sealed and what is blown outside is replaced by and equal amount of fresh air and the whole system should be completely room sealed internally.

If the boiler case seal is damaged or in this situation, the flue is not pushed together correctly the system is no longer balanced and there is potential for danger to life or property in the future (At Risk) if there was an actual current spillage of products it would be classed as immediately dangerous and shut off.

AR (At Risk) should be turned off and customer advised not to use.
IR (Immediately Dangerous) should be disconnected and if customer refuses, passed to gas shipper to cut off supply (gas shipper has right of entry with police in attendance) but usually cut off outside.

As this is AR it should be simply turned off and customer advised not to turn it back on, of course many do turn it back on and use it after we are gone.

I actually think this might have been ID rather than AR but without seeing what the attending engineer saw I can only guess.

A RIDDOR should indeed have been completed but online within a week for an AR situation, paper forms are no longer used. In practice RIDDOR forms rarely get filled in because people want to avoid the "trouble" and believe me, when the HSE get involved there is a lot for form filling. Not right I know, but I'm just saying what happens in practice.

Going back to the flue, if it was the air duct that was not pushed together correctly then it would be unlikely any products were escaping but there clearly could be a future risk and that's why it was probably classed as AR.
As has been said, a photo in situ would have been more helpful but all these things are fine in hindsight. I should also add that balanced flues are normally push fit but nowadays we are expected to put a self tapper in each joint to ensure it does not pull apart, I cant see evidence of a screw in the picture.

It's hard to give much more advice from the picture, it looks like an older boiler as it's all metal and modern boilers tend to have a plastic inner duct, it's odd the inner duct is so long, normally that would stick out about 25mm and I don't see a terminal on the lower end, maybe a straight length before a 90 degree bend? All speculation from the picture.

I'm surprised Gas Safe have not come back to you, have you spoken to them on the phone or just sent an email, I would give them a call they are normally very helpful.

As far as SSE go, you can only keep contacting them and when the time has elapsed contact the regulator and see if they can help.