Our killer boiler

Talk Electrician Forum

Help Support Talk Electrician Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

cmt

Junior Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
We moved into a property in 2010 which was converted a few years ago at roughly the same time as our neighbour's property by the same large London property developer. We bought it virtually new from the developer (who had tenanted it for a year until he found a buyer). We have a Keston boiler which we have never had serviced - we thought it was new and hence a service would not be necessary.

Last week I called in a heating engineer who was recommended by our plumber to replace a faulty timer. When he was replacing it he noticed that the timer had not been earthed. He went on to inspect the whole central heating and discovered that not one component in the central heating system had been earthed. He was clearly appalled and made the work safe for us. He said he'd never seen such a poor job in his career and that it almost looked like the person who had installed it had been trying to kill someone. He explained that if there had been a leak it could have made the plumbing throughout the house go live and we would have been instantly killed if we touched a tap, radiator or pipe. He is willing to write a report about what he found. As you can imagine as a parent of a 5 yr old and a 3 yr old this was very upsetting to hear.

I checked our conveyancing documents and the boiler engineer installed the boiler a few months after the building had received its NICEIC domestic electrical installation certificate.

The boiler engineer was Corgi registered. I checked with Gas Safe and they confirmed he is registered to fit boilers. They wrote to me to say that they will not pursue him because the problem was to do with his electrics, not his gas-fitting!

I contacted Trading Standards who are a bit busy with the Olympics (we're in Hackney). They said that we can't pursue the company ourselves because we didn't commission the work originally. We have to go back to the developer and suggest that they pursue it, but they have no obligation to! I know that this particular developer have a reputation as take-your-money-and-run types who will have no interest in pursuing it if they're not going to gain financially.

Please note, I am not after any kind of compensation, but I strongly feel that whoever installed this system put our lives in extreme danger and ought to be stopped.

I spoke to my neighbour about the problem because, as I said, their house was converted by the same developer. I suggested that they get it checked out - low-and-behold their central heating was also not earthed throughout (along with a few other problems caused by the installation). This goes to show that the man who installed our boilers clearly hasn't got a clue what he's doing. He may still be installing boilers (4 years later) all over London which are time-bombs waiting to go off. Our neighbours are keen to see this man stopped too.

Does anyone have any idea what I do next? I feel like we've fallen into a black hole now. We are the ones who would have been killed but we can't do anything about it.

Do we approach Building Control who passed Building regulations? Should they have picked up on the fact that the boiler wasn't wired up properly? A friend said that they should have seen a Part P certificate to prove that it was safe.

Is there anything we can threat the property developers with in order to force them to take action?

Should we keep on at Gas Safe, or is this a fruitless task?

I don't really know enough about the regulations and processes and would really value the opinion of someone who does.

 
I actually doupt that the heating is not earthed. Many plumbers wrongly think all the pipes should be bonded under the boiler & also at the meter. Most time cclocks and programers do not need an earth, but may have a terminal simply to 'park' the cable. Its probably not as bad as you have been told but a compedant electrician should look it over

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I wouldn't get too worried it does sound like your plumber may be a little miss guided.

Ring up a local electrician and get them to come round to take a look at the issue. Would probably cost you

 
It wasn't just the timer which wasn't earthed - it was absolutely everything in the system. Also it was a gas engineer (Gas Safe registered) who came in to fix the timer, not a plumber. He specialises in boiler breakdown repair, new boiler or gas central heating system installation. I'm fairly confident that he knows what he's talking about.

I do actually have beach volleyball tickets ; -)

 
Can you take a few pics of the womens beach volleyball ?
:D

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was made at 00:12 ----------

sorry,

:|

Im a normal bloke,

at least I'll admit to wanting to watch young , fit , nubile ladies with hardly any clothes on,,,,,,

hang on, I need a cold shower now,,,, :|

 
really?

I wonder why? :C

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 00:19 ---------- Previous post was made at 00:18 ----------

cmt bought all the tickets to use as bribes for tradesmen! :)

 
It is possible he had his 3 core from FCU and parked it in the connector on the backplate, then all remaining cores used as control wires including what should be the earth conductor.

How many times have you seen the earth used on the cylinder stat on a Y-Plan, where they have only used a 3 core, for Com/NO/NC.

 
We moved into a property in 2010 which was converted a few years ago ......When he was replacing it he noticed that the timer had not been earthed.

He went on to inspect the whole central heating and discovered that not one component in the central heating system had been earthed. H

He explained that if there had been a leak it could have made the plumbing throughout the house go live and we would have been instantly killed if we touched a tap, radiator or pipe.

I don't really know enough about the regulations and processes and would really value the opinion of someone who does.
It wasn't just the timer which wasn't earthed - it was absolutely everything in the system. Also it was a gas engineer (Gas Safe registered) who came in to fix the timer, not a plumber. He specialises in boiler breakdown repair, new boiler or gas central heating system installation. I'm fairly confident that he knows what he's talking about.
I am not that confident he knows what he is talking about by statements such as:-

"we would have been instantly killed if we touched a tap, radiator or pipe. "

Touching a single live part will only complete a circuit if you are also touching an earthy part..

you are unlikely to be killed instantly unless you are touching both a live and an earthed part.

{look outside and you can see birds landing on high voltage overhead cables without being killed or going pop!!}

A lot of central heating timers and thermostats are double insulated all plastic construction and do not need earths connected.

If the electrical work was done from 2008 then it has probably got comprehensive RCD shock protection built into the fuse box..

(A photo of your fuse box would help!)..

In which case the RCDs will disconcert the power in less than half a second in the event of a fault.... so you wont be killed...

A lot of modern heating systems are installed using plastic pipes....

Which DON'T conduct electricity.....

So if one part did go live... it would only be as far as the next bit of plastic pipe!

To be honest its sounds as though your gas engineer was over exaggerating the issue...

I think you need to get a second opinion form a qualified electrician, he (or she) could easily verify if there were/are any significant dangers...

;)

:put the kettle on

 
As you have pointed out the difference between a plumber and gas engineer.

There is a big difference between a gas engineer and an electrician, ask your friends for a recommended electrician to have a look, please!

 
Top