Am I going mad on this?

[cr0ft]

Hi all,

I've just had a gas fitter round tonight who is going to be fitting the boiler for us on this property renovation job. The cylinder which is going to remain is a new open vented indirect cylinder. I want to fit a system boiler in the loft which will obviously remove the need for the F/E cistern. This will heat the water in the cylinder. The heating circuit will obviously be pressurised and we will run completely new pipework throughout the house for it.

The gas fitter didn't seem sure that a system boiler can be run on an open vented cylinder. My response was 'of course it can, the coils are built to withstand the pressure'. Is he right or am I? I am sure I have seen this setup before with just a CWSC in the loft feeding the hot water cylinder.

Am I going mad? He's got me doubting myself.

 

[SimonG]

Coils normally good for 3 bar.

 

[AWheating]

its fine.

 

[Leo21]

Ditto, your gas mans a buffoon.

 

[SilentMike]

yea it can be fitted check the mi's for the boiler

 

[GasmanxxxR1]

Time to get a new gas man

 

[kris]

Dont understand why eeediots think just because the boiler is pressurised your hot water tank has to be aswell,,, if i were you i wouldnt be allowing someone who didnt understand something as simple as that to work on any of my installs,, fair enough if its a simple brain fart he had as we all get one from time to time ,,




thats ment to be a brain fart lol

 

[Destroyer2813]

Time to get a new gas man

If that stumps him what sort of work does he produce ?

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

your gas man is wrong,or stupid but definitely both ,you can even connect a combi to a cylinder provided you know what your doing,most combis are cheaper to buy than system boilers you just need one hot tap off the combi

 

[kris]

your gas man is wrong,or stupid but definitely both ,you can even connect a combi to a cylinder provided you know what your doing,most combis are cheaper to buy than system boilers you just need one hot tap off the combi

Combis cheaper than system boilers , where you getting your ones mark lol, suppose,,, if you dont need the hw side then low kw combi is all thats needed

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Combis cheaper than system boilers , where you getting your ones mark lol, suppose,,, if you dont need the hw side then low kw combi is all thats needed

if its a private job from Ray mainly,he seems to have the best deals,however we are doing a lot for a big window company they supply there own from travis perkins but they probably get special terms as they spend thousands per week

 

[cr0ft]

The guy is inexperienced to be honest. He's a 6 week course wonder. He does have a very good work ethic though. We were all there once. That's why I just get him to hang the boiler and we take care of the rest of the stuff basically. Cheers all, he had me doubting myself..

 

[Dotty]

The guy is inexperienced to be honest. He's a 6 week course wonder.

I can't help but think this is going to end in tears Keiran.

 

[tamz]

Ditto, your gas mans a buffoon.

The words i would have used are fekin clown (edited version)

 

[Ray Stafford]

There's potentially a world of difference between a proper heating engineer and someone with a gassafe ticket with the right appliances ticked.

 

[mountainman]

I hate boile

 

[mountainman]

rs in lofts!

 

[cr0ft]

He's done a job for me before which went fine, albeit he was a bit slow. He knows how to hang a boiler properly but it's a scary sign of the times with these short courses. They don't really teach you much else do they?

He's got his GSR ticket which I've checked out so he must be able to safely hang a boiler one would think. I think he is just a bit inexperienced. He is also the only person I can find who is interested in just doing the boiler with us doing the rest of it so I don't really have a lot of options here.

This loft is going to be a deluxe loft when it's all done. A decent floor, a good couple of lights up there. He will be in 7th heaven.

@Ray, I couldn't agree more. I would consider myself a heating engineer without the gas ticket tbh. I'm going to do my oil next year so I can at least actually install some boilers. I think this gas fitter knows how to safely fit a boiler (mostly combis) and that's about it. Luckily I've got a good understanding of the non-gas bits. He is charging £320 to hang the boiler and run the vertical flue through the roof and come back for a 2nd appointment when the heating pipework is all in and tested to commission it.

I would prefer to have someone local on this forum doing it but when I tried to pass work over to someone local recently I got no interest at all (I presume there are no regulars on here near Lincoln) so what can I do?

 

[cr0ft]

I can't help but think this is going to end in tears Keiran.

I can understand why! He's been trading for 2 years now but still shows his inexperience a bit. We have used him before though and his work was safe, albeit he was a bit slow. Would I trust him to do anything other than hang a boiler/run a gas pipe though? Not a chance.

 

[Millsy 82]

Just because he is a gsr doesn't mean he's a heating engineer, he may be an installer only and some people only know how to fit combis as everything is there (a lot don't know how to fit them either!).

It is a pretty basic thing I would expect them to know it but I bet you he has gone and looked it up and is shaking his head at himself.

Why not point him this way and then he can learn more.

 

[leelister6]

Doing a gas safe course teaches you nothing about anything except working safely with gas. One of the blokes on the course I did 5 years ago was an out of work ice cream man who'd never picked a screwdriver up and after 8 weeks he was QUALIFIED to fit a boiler and heating system in someones home but it would have taken him a day and half to get boiler out of box!

 

[oz-plumber]

He must have impressed you with some of his previous work, so as long as you keep an eye on him things will turn out ok.

You never know - you and him may both learn something.

20 years ago, I used to ring more experienced guys to get information and guidance.
20 years on, I'm getting young inexperienced people ringing me.

In this game, you don't hit the ground running.
You learn something new everyday - how else do you get knowledge and experience?

 

[Millsy 82]

He must have impressed you with some of his previous work, so as long as you keep an eye on him things will turn out ok.

You never know - you and him may both learn something.

20 years ago, I used to ring more experienced guys to get information and guidance.
20 years on, I'm getting young inexperienced people ringing me.

In this game, you don't hit the ground running.
You learn something new everyday - how else do you get knowledge and experience?

I can remember when I first started doing breakdowns the poor bloke who I kept phoning must of hated me as it was virtually every job I was phoning him. 10 years later I was a lead engineer for a different company and I was the one getting all the phone calls (even off one of the gas managers as he was install only, breakdowns he didn't have a clue lol)

If this lad has only been doing it for 2 years then I do feel for him as it must be hard trying to run a business and learn about the different boilers, systems etc as after my apprenticeship I still struggled a bit.

 

[Leo21]

Sorry fellas, but there's no way he or his ilk should be trading. It's unfair on the general public, a breakdown turns in to a marathon of "I need another part". Where one right part would do! And it's bad for our trade image, what we have left of it.
There should be proper routes and experience gained through aprentaships and work experience. It should be monitored as well, so engineers have a good experience base before being unleashed on the general public.

or Croft.

 

[WaterTight]

It is possible to believe that he and 'his ilk' shouldn't be trading at the same time as beliving he will do his work properly, price fairly, stick to what he knows and that quite possibly he felt he had few other choices to better his life and begin a career he desired. Conflict of interests.

If faced with an opportunity to better my life and my working life but risk contributing to the cheapening and degrading of an age old respectable trade I don't think I'd lose too much sleep over jumping in. I wouldn't want to rip people off or risk people's property but actually there's no need to do that if you learn carefully, respect your boundaries and charge according to your worth and skill. The biggest risk is you contribute the re-defining or what it means to be that particular tradesman, usually until it is less and less all-encompassing.

 

[Leo21]

It is possible to believe that he and 'his ilk' shouldn't be trading at the same time as beliving he will do his work properly, price fairly, stick to what he knows and that quite possibly he felt he had few other choices to better his life and begin a career he desired. Conflict of interests.

If faced with an opportunity to better my life and my working life but risk contributing to the cheapening and degrading of an age old respectable trade I don't think I'd lose too much sleep over jumping in. I wouldn't want to rip people off or risk people's property but actually there's no need to do that if you learn carefully, respect your boundaries and charge according to your worth and skill. The biggest risk is you contribute the re-defining or what it means to be that particular tradesman, usually until it is less and less all-encompassing.

As my daughter says "whatever"

 

[WaterTight]

Innit.

 

[cr0ft]

Doing a gas safe course teaches you nothing about anything except working safely with gas. One of the blokes on the course I did 5 years ago was an out of work ice cream man who'd never picked a screwdriver up and after 8 weeks he was QUALIFIED to fit a boiler and heating system in someones home but it would have taken him a day and half to get boiler out of box!

It does scare me a bit that. It seems easy for people not in the industry to get in it but prohibitively expensive (in terms of time) for good heating engineers running their own business to get gas qualified. I think the system doesn't work as it's intended to imo.

He impressed me in that he worked a long day to hang a previous boiler. I don't mind helping people get experience as long as they are safe and the job is good, even if they are a little slow. It's the ones who are inexperienced and rush jobs that are liabilities imo. He's a vast improvement on previous gas fitters I've had working for me. I think I may have mentioned before, I found one of his gas leaks in a customer's garage as I could smell the bloody thing and hear it hissing lol.

Would have been funny if it couldn't have been so dangerous.

 

[cr0ft]

I can remember when I first started doing breakdowns the poor bloke who I kept phoning must of hated me as it was virtually every job I was phoning him. 10 years later I was a lead engineer for a different company and I was the one getting all the phone calls (even off one of the gas managers as he was install only, breakdowns he didn't have a clue lol)

If this lad has only been doing it for 2 years then I do feel for him as it must be hard trying to run a business and learn about the different boilers, systems etc as after my apprenticeship I still struggled a bit.

He definitely loves his combi boilers I think. When I mentioned it was going to be a system boiler his first response was 'are you running all the heating pipework?'. Think he was glad when I said yes tbh.

 

[Ermintrude]

There's potentially a world of difference between a proper heating engineer and someone with a gassafe ticket with the right appliances ticked.

What u seen me work too? Gas safe and training standards said the same