Home DIY

Ha, indeed. And bleekrefs has no heating or cooking and it’s chilly oot.

True, I'm only half serious, my main intent is to describe what a fucking joke £1,600 is for some pipes and smashing some holes - that absolutely will not get made good - in the side of Bleekref's house is.

I mean, if that is how much it actually costs to get that done, rather than the guy taking the piss, I would be keen to explore other options. Both heating and cooking can be done by electric on a temp. basis, so....

you’re changing my mind. Fuck the Gas Safe guy. Go temp electric, get another quote for gas, look into enviro-alternatives.

you just reminded me to check myself.

you get 3 years extra if you register. same deal as most other tool companies.

go here and sign up for an account then you can download the pro360 app which allows you to scan the package based on what the website says.
https://pro360.bosch-professional.com/web/onboarding

What was the leak over the test, Did you smell anything?

Also £1600 to repipe it, even if its a bastard of a job i wouldnt even be close to that price.

Another thing that isnt gonna help you now is that you could have said dont fuckin bother capping it unless it was the supplier that's disced the meter.

In gas there is a scope to leave a "leak" so depending on how bad or not bad it is the people could be at it to a certain degree and has left you on the shit.

How did they identify a leak?

They found that pressure going into the gas meter was fine, but at the utilities in the home, it was much lower.

I think I'm comfortable there's a leak, but pretty pissed off we didn't get to quote for alternatives.

No, no smells or anything. They are taking the pipe outside - that's new, before it was under the floorboards, and now they're installing it to the outside of the building - if that makes a difference?

Yeah but as i said above depending what meter is installed there is permissible limits for leaks.

So for example. Test between 20-21mb. The 2 min test shows there is a 1mb leak on the system with all appliances connected and you have a U6 meter on that meter your "allowed" a 4mb leak as long as the person doesnt smell anything its fine and if they do its zero is allowed.

Even running it outside £1600 is just rip off, maybe its coz were not in london but i could never charge anything like that to run a gas pipe up here.

Thank you. I've asked for the leak mb reading.

I do trust the woman who detected the leak initially, and she said that the last time they did this job for someone it cost about the same - but I am pissed off that they capped us off without giving us any options or it seems the readings needed to verify whether it was necessary.

She is gas safe registered and gave us a 'danger do not use' note, but it doesn't include that information.

Do you want to pay £1,600 to have a gas supply pipe on the exterior of your house?

I'm actually not too bothered by where it is - it's a semi-detached with a tiny little alley between, so it'll be hidden from view. But I do resent the amount and the lack of choice. Cutting off our gas on a night where it went to under freezing feels like a pisstake.

You do have choices - you just don’t know what they are and your trade smells £1,600 for a few hours work so they aren’t going to help you.

I’m kinda being a stickler for detail here, but she should have gave you paper work that said there is a X gas leak in your property.

No there’s a gas leak, I have to cut you off(which technically isn’t true depending the situation) and it’s £1600 to repipe.

If for example the leak was well past the limits and you said, you’re not cutting my fucking gas off. You as the installer have to do something so you call it in and transco or what ever they are called down there come out and do it without any choice to you but since we don’t know the actual facts it’s hard to guess.

I don’t have any skin in this game, but £1600 is wild for a repipe, folk really are walking about with masks.

I’d also call about local companies and see if they can give you a price too.

How hard is water and central heating plumbing? Tempted to DIY it

Cheers!

I always try and remember to do this after forgetting to register my dewalt drill. Not that anything went wrong. Just that I missed out on the window for the 3yr.

Pushfit (e.g speedfit) is piss easy, it feels like cheating. You just need to measure everything up and plan ahead and make sure you follow the install instructions. A lot of old school people seem to think it’s untrustworthy but I’ve had no issues.

You’ll need someone gas safe to do boiler work if you need to do that but all your other heating stuff is DIYable.

Speedfit is as easy as, but remember that the joints need to grow a mm or so when you pressurise the system for it to seal properly. Don’t wedge a pipe into a tight space, leave room for it to move and you’ll be golden.

After much procrastination, cold weather has made me want to finally sort my loft out. I haven’t really been up there since I got the house, but looking now and it looks like the previous owner has done something….weird.

Picture attached shows the general idea. Yellow is insulation beneath chipboard floor boards. It’s pink fibrous stuff, and stuffed between joists so probably 100mm or less.

Pink lines are the weird bit. He’s built a stud wall and it looks like the same pink insulation is in there behind plasterboard. On the roof, it looks like that insulation has been put between the rafters then boarded over with plasterboard. Then the whole lot (roof and walls) covered in carpet underlay (?!).

The ventilation in the side bits is good, but I’m guessing the middle part being insulated and boarded over is not good for the rafters.

I’m guessing my best option is:

1. Pull down the plasterboard and insulation from the rafter area
   
2. Add 200-300mm insulation to the yellow area.
   
3. Get loft legs and re board the middle yellow area for storage.
   
   

I’m wondering if I should pull the stud walls down too.

I’m guessing it’s not really possible to avoid pulling down the stuff on the rafters?

1 Attachment

Reckon your plan makes sense.

We had a load of rigid PIR insulation of various thicknesses left over from our work so I laid that directly onto the joists in the parts of the loft I would have boarded. Fluffy knauff in the eves and everywhere else. You’d have to do the maths to see if it’s cheaper or the same as fluff, boards, loft legs and your time. It’s certainly quicker.

I actually have a decent amount of PIR that I started to use for insulating in between the joists in the basement. I’ve discovered that’s quite difficult when the joists are old and uneven. Maybe it’s best to use that for the loft instead!

Was probably used as a model train space. We had something similar but from what I can tell it was model tanks.

Yea, it’s clearly been used as some kind of extra room (although there’s not even a proper loft ladder and hatch). I just don’t get why he used all this carpet underlay!

Must have got a job lot of it as the basement was lined with it too, along with the carp pond…

so the sticker that looks like the one in the app and is placed on the same part of the box as the photo in the app does not recognise as a valid product id (but the app can read the sticker... which is confusing).

I just took mine out and assembled it, then put it back in the workshop completely forgetting to register it. ffs

the middle part being insulated and boarded over is not good for the rafters.

There should be ventilation between the insulation and the roof - I think that's the biggest worry you have there.

Other than that, and carpet on the walls, it seems reasonable enough.

Moar insulation in the eaves is good, though, but remember to leave the soffits unblocked.

I’d also call about local companies and see if they can give you a price too.

Thank you. Unfortunately while I tried to get some other quotes, none of them were available to come next day, so we were obliged to use the recommended fitters and give them £1600 of our hard earned quids.

I did use your information to challenge the gas safe engineer a little, and she confirmed that she discovered the leak by doing a four min test, which she ran twice - once with a manual tester and once with an auto test - and both showed a leak very much beyond 4mb allowed level, coming from somewhere in the pipework. She said the reading coming into the meter was perfect, but the reading coming out of the meter was so poor that the test was bottoming out, and she couldn't get a solid reading, it just kept dipping down and down. She then capped off each of the fireplaces and cookers and boilers in order, and found the leak was still present, so decided the leak was in the pipework and capped the meter. To be fair to her the paperwork does say 'gas leak on pipework, capped meter', which I guess to a more educated person might provide that same insight, but it didn't to me at the time. She also said that she didn't charge us for her day's work yesterday and the fitters she got in today were not related to her, and she did not earn a comission from them, and that they cancelled other work to do this as a favour to her, so if that's true I feel like a bit of a dick pushing her.

These lads have done a good job fwiw but I'm still unhappy. However she did say all the things you suggested @konastab01 and she's done free work for elderly neighbours in the past, so she's probably more trustworthy than most. It just feels a bit like a cunts game and I'm tired of every small thing I keep asking workpeople to do coming out at 5 times the original quoted price.

why he used all this carpet underlay!

My guess is they had the carpets redone and used the old underlay. Seems a pretty sensible thrifty option as it has insulating properties (both for heat and sound).