On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:59:57 +0000, YAPH wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 10:04:14 +0000, Tim S wrote:

[1] I might as well ask now it's come up - is Fluxite (old fashioned
brown stuff) considered gas safe, together with a 60/40 solder?

No! [throws book :-)]

It must be heat-activated flux like LaCo and Fernox stuff - should say
on the tin that it's OK for gas work. AIUI the idea is that the flux is
only corrosive (necessary to cut through crap on the surface to wet the
metal with solder) when it's hot, so when it cools down any that's run
inside the joint doesn't corrode the pipe from the inside (since of
course you can't flush out your gas pipework as you can with water
services[1].

For the same reason you must apply flux to the pipe only, and not inside
the fitting.

And electrical solder would be out simply because it's not approved for
gas work.

All sounds very pedantic and arse-covering, I know, but as I hope you
see there is method in at least some of the madness.

I had to walk away from fitting a hob this week because it didn't have
the manufacturer's instructions (or even a data plate) and was missing
any fixing clamps. According to the customer (who'd bought it on the
interweb) the MIs (which he's getting the seller to send) say that the
hob is secured by the sealing strips. Sounds dodgy to me, but if that's
what it says in the MIs then that's OK. However if I'd fitted it like
that in the absence of instructions to that effect and there'd been any
comeback I'd have had the book thrown at me. And why would there be any
comeback? I don't know, but it can happen for unexpected reasons. I put
a boiler in for someone in a flat and I ran the gas pipe at high level
on a wall outside the flat to get into it. Some busybody in the
residents' association took it upon themselves to winge about it to the
freeholder's managing agents who got it inspected by another installer
who covered his own arse by flagging up some sleeving where the pipework
went through the wall as Not to Current Standards since (as he explained
to me) he couldn't identify the material used for the sleeve so couldn't
be sure it complied with the regs. I ended up spending about half a day
chasing up that installer, writing to the agents, explaining the
situation to the customer and so on.

Thatis a mattwer of how you interpret the phrase in the regs that says

"[the sleeving] must be of a material capable of carrying gas".

A strict interpretation would be that the sleeve must be steel or copper.
A looser interpretation would be that the sleeve must be a material that
COULD carry gas but MIGHT not be used for that purpose.








--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html
Choosing a Boiler FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html