Just had a visit from a very friendly plumber, about replacing an electric
hob with a gas hob.

In passing, he said that he had just had to condemn an installation where a
Polish person had connected the cold mains to the gas part of the boiler,
and the gas to the cold mains feed.
He had told them they would have to call in the gas and water boards and it
would const them £7-8K to sort it all out.

My mind is still mildly boggling over the concept.
[And the £7-8K; I suppose it depends on how long they had it all turned on
before they realised the boiler wasn't lighting and they seemed to have a
lot of air in the water system.]

I am also wondering which is going to cause more problems - mains pressure
water in the gas main or mains pressure gas in the water main.

Not far from November the 5th; exploding water anyone?

"We keep putting water on the fire but it keeps getting worse and now our
hose is on fire".
Alternatively
"The gas cooker keeps putting itself out".

Boggle, boggle, boggle. :-)

Dave R

In article ,
David WE Roberts wrote:
In passing, he said that he had just had to condemn an installation
where a Polish person had connected the cold mains to the gas part of
the boiler, and the gas to the cold mains feed. He had told them they
would have to call in the gas and water boards and it would const them
£7-8K to sort it all out.

Didn't cost that much when we did it in the science labs at school.

--
*Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"David WE Roberts" writes:
Just had a visit from a very friendly plumber, about replacing an electric
hob with a gas hob.

In passing, he said that he had just had to condemn an installation where a
Polish person had connected the cold mains to the gas part of the boiler,
and the gas to the cold mains feed.
He had told them they would have to call in the gas and water boards and it
would const them £7-8K to sort it all out.

My mind is still mildly boggling over the concept.
[And the £7-8K; I suppose it depends on how long they had it all turned on
before they realised the boiler wasn't lighting and they seemed to have a
lot of air in the water system.]

I am also wondering which is going to cause more problems - mains pressure
water in the gas main or mains pressure gas in the water main.

The former, particularly if it's gone back into the street gas main.
I would guess new meter at a minimum (even if it looks like it works,
calibration would need rechecking).

Gas pressure isn't high enough (anywhere near) to get back into the
water main.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I am also wondering which is going to cause more problems - mains pressure
water in the gas main or mains pressure gas in the water main.

The former, particularly if it's gone back into the street gas main.
I would guess new meter at a minimum (even if it looks like it works,
calibration would need rechecking).



But it won't, will it?
Mains water has not been connected to the gas main.

The gas supply has been connected to the mains cold feed to the boiler.
By mains cold feed, I'm assuming a combi.

That's an inlet to the boiler, and there's not going to be any back-feed
from anywhere, unless someone has looped a mains supply back to the hot
taps?

Since this is a DIY group, I'd just dismantle it, drain water out of
where it don't belong, ( perhaps a blast of compressed air )and hope the
gas valve has survived the wetting!

Re-assemble and hope for the best :-)


--
Ron

Sounds like a scare story.

It's an incredibly unlikely situation where the two would be
simultaneously disconnected, and then reassembled so wrongly that the
incoming gas supply does a u-turn into the rising water main - and
then the two get turned on simultaneously (without noticing that
turning on the first hadn't produced the expected effect) so that
mains pressure water is driven back through the gas supply -
presumably back through the gas meter as well.

Does anyone really turn on one supply, then immediately turn on the
next, before checking the first for leaks/purging etc?

They do *have* water and gas in Poland - so there's no reason why a
Polish plumber is any more likely to make such a horrendous mistake
than a British one.

John Rumm wrote:

Since this is a DIY group, I'd just dismantle it, drain water out of
where it don't belong, ( perhaps a blast of compressed air )and hope
the gas valve has survived the wetting!

I could well see the boiler being shagged - a dose of water in the gas
valve, fan, over the PCB etc.



Well, possibly. But I still think it's worth the punt.

I doubt the main gas valve would have opened enough to allow enough
water in to flood things that badly. The thermocouple wouldn't have
allowed that.

I still say a good dismantle / blast with compressed air / dry out
components in an airing cupboard overnight would have a fair chance of
working.

In our work, we often get complex electronic and electo-mechanical parts
flooded, with things much worse than fresh water. You'd be amazed how
often a good flush in fresh water, followed by baking at a lowish temp
in a drying oven can bring them back to life. Depends how much magic
smoke has been alowed to leak out under fault conditions! If the
engineer has been able to recognise the failure quickly, and
powered-down before cooking everyting with dozens of amps, there's a
fair chance of recovery.

--

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:47:19 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
£7-8K to sort it all out.

Didn't cost that much when we did it in the science labs at school.

Wonder if that's true today? I remember H+S being somewhat relaxed during
school science classes back in the day. And a heck of a lot more fun
because of it. :-)

"Jules" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:47:19 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
£7-8K to sort it all out.

Didn't cost that much when we did it in the science labs at school.

Wonder if that's true today? I remember H+S being somewhat relaxed during
school science classes back in the day. And a heck of a lot more fun
because of it. :-)

1958 was a different world then!

"David WE Roberts" wrote in message
...
Just had a visit from a very friendly plumber, about replacing an electric
hob with a gas hob.

In passing, he said that he had just had to condemn an installation where
a Polish person had connected the cold mains to the gas part of the
boiler, and the gas to the cold mains feed.
He had told them they would have to call in the gas and water boards and
it would const them £7-8K to sort it all out.

My mind is still mildly boggling over the concept.
[And the £7-8K; I suppose it depends on how long they had it all turned on
before they realised the boiler wasn't lighting and they seemed to have a
lot of air in the water system.]

I am also wondering which is going to cause more problems - mains pressure
water in the gas main or mains pressure gas in the water main.

Interesting comments.......

....now if you plumb the gas into the mains cold water feed to a combi I
presume you will have fun when you start bleeding the radiators?

Taking a long time for the water to come through, perhaps I've got time for
a fag.........

Agreed that if you do a simple cross over you are just likely to get water
out through the gas jets.

However you are likely to get gas throughout the central heating and hot
water supply as AFAIK this all flows through the boiler from the mains cold
feed.

This alone would presumably have the gas people round because a set of
radiators filled with gas is probably a minor safety hazard.

Yep - as described it shouldn't get back into the mains; it was just such a
graphic picture :-)

Cheers

Dave R

In article
,
wrote:
They do *have* water and gas in Poland - so there's no reason why a
Polish plumber is any more likely to make such a horrendous mistake
than a British one.

I'd say it's unlikely too. Although we might be fairly unique in using
identical tube for water and gas.

--
*Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In message , David WE Roberts
writes
Just had a visit from a very friendly plumber, about replacing an
electric hob with a gas hob.

In passing, he said that he had just had to condemn an installation
where a Polish person had connected the cold mains to the gas part of
the boiler, and the gas to the cold mains feed.
He had told them they would have to call in the gas and water boards
and it would const them £7-8K to sort it all out.

Sounds like ******** to me

There is no such thing as the gas board, and while there would probably
be some purging necessary of the gas main, water pressure is so much
higher than gas pressure that there's little chance of any gas ending up
in the water supply

Just another lying plumber

--
geoff

In article , Andrew Gabriel
wrote:
In article , "David WE Roberts"
writes:
Just had a visit from a very friendly plumber, about replacing an
electric hob with a gas hob.
[snipped]

I am also wondering which is going to cause more problems - mains
pressure water in the gas main or mains pressure gas in the water
main.

The former, particularly if it's gone back into the street gas main. I
would guess new meter at a minimum (even if it looks like it works,
calibration would need rechecking).

Gas pressure isn't high enough (anywhere near) to get back into the
water main.

The bungalow we lived in for 30yrs was the last one to be built on the
block. We were at the footof a slope with the road levelling off, but
seems we were at a low spot on the gas main. Over the last few years we
were there we had occasional problems with water in the gas. With a couple
of appliances lit, the supply would fail, the restart with a 'pop' as it
ignited on hot :coals, or pan rest, etc.

Usually it was sorted out by the engineers in a couple of hours or so,
(AFTER the obligatory visit by at least 1 supervisor - even though after
the first time we knew and explained what the problem was)

The gas main apparently often has water in it from leaks in the pipe and
after spells ofheavy rain, this water puddles in sumps designed for its
collection. One such sump was outside our home and when it couldn't cope
had to be pumped out.

On the last occasion there was quite a bit of dirty water splashed around
our entrance hall, where it had been emptied out of our meter. Not the
cleanest ofworkers; but it was 9pm on Christmas eve! (Apparently no
problem for the meter)

--
John Mulrooney
NOTE Email address IS correct but might not be checked for a while.

I bet being with gamblers anonymous will work this time

In message , geoff
wrote

Just another lying plumber


He probably did say that the gas and water boards needed to be called
and quoted the £7k figure because he was p*****d off with people
employing foreign workers at a cheaper price.
--
Alan
news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

"Alan" wrote in message
...
In message , geoff wrote

Just another lying plumber


He probably did say that the gas and water boards needed to be called and
quoted the £7k figure because he was p*****d off with people employing
foreign workers at a cheaper price.

Presumably if the plumber had a Corgi/Gas Safe ticket then this problem
would be reported back to the parent organisation to fix.

Presumably also the nationality of a non-registered plumber is irrelevant -
I took this to be someone who had used an unregistered plumber (who happened
to be Polish) and then had to call in a registered plumber to sort the mess
out.
And ended up with their system condemned.

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:49:22 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
I'd say it's unlikely too. Although we might be fairly unique in using
identical tube for water and gas.

Same here in the US, FWIW, at least from a sample of three houses