Help! Gas man needed

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Any chance of getting a taper in to get it lit?

Most modern balanced flue boilers are room sealed. Fresh air for combustion is pulled in through one channel of the flue, whilst exhast gasses are expelled through the other channel of the flue.

If the boiler isn't room sealed, i.e. it is open to the room itself (such that you can stick a taper or other light in), you need to ensure the room itself has proper permanent ventilation (an air grille that cannot be blocked - an openable window is not enough) otherwise you run a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Most modern balanced flue boilers are room sealed. Fresh air for combustion is pulled in through one channel of the flue, whilst exhast gasses are expelled through the other channel of the flue.

If the boiler isn't room sealed, i.e. it is open to the room itself (such that you can stick a taper or other light in), you need to ensure the room itself has proper permanent ventilation (an air grille that cannot be blocked - an openable window is not enough) otherwise you run a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

How does that work when I've got an aga ....'cos I can take the little glass window off and light it with a taper

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

How does that work when I've got an aga, ....'cos I can take the little glass window off and light it with a taper

I think "cookers" dont need permanent ventilation, as the theory is they aren't on long enough to use up the air in a room. However the aga includes a boiler so it should have permanent ventilation. Is there a grille or something under the floor, or behind a kitchen cabinet?

Perhaps the removable / replaceable glass area is too small to constitute a breach of the room seal?

As far as I recall (and I'm not a gas engineer, just a surveyor who has to watch out for possible issues), gas appliances except cookers, that are not room sealed need permanent ventilation of the room.

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

You must have seen lots of heating cowboys at those prices. Either that or your house is the size of Stu's shed.

JOOI, my GCH (Worcester Bosch 2400 boiler, 4 rads) cost £2,300. But there's no way I'd pay the price BG want for their service contracts!

[zoombini]

I'm not a Corgi or a Gas engineer... and neither of them could fix my boiler when it broke.
(So I didnt have a callout charge to pay).

I had a similar problem to Russ, the pilot went out & would not light, although the Gas supply was OK.

In the end I noticed that the fan was not turning as it should & hence no extraction was happening so no air was being bought into the unit.

With a bit of electrical tracing, I found that the relay on the control board had badly corroded contacts.

Replacing that & it sprang back into life, only to die the same way again three years later. So this time when I replaced the relay I also added some extra circuitry to reduce the arcing when it operated.

Its been fine for years now, although I suppose it could do with a service/cleanout.

Reading the installation manual, its actually quite amazing how simple the things actually are & understandable in thier operation. So the monopoly (OK, I mean "law") on "Corgi engineers only" fixing your boilers doesnt always mean that they can.

How come you had to reboot your gas meter? how on earth does it work? I have never heard of a Gas meter that has the slightest possibility of needing owt like that. But then mines an old model.

it'll probably be a dirty or knackered thermocouple.

Occasionally you can clean these (if you can get to them).
I'd advise getting a corgi registered guy out though, it may be a serious problem.

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by Russ D

OK thanks to all - I've figured it out. My gas meter keeps resetting itself or something like that and I need to reboot it before it will deliver any gas. I sorted that out and the place is now warm

You rebooted your gas meter?
Which version of Windows does it run?

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Richard M

You rebooted your gas meter?
Which version of Windows does it run?

I know Mr Gates keeps claiming everything should be running a version of windows, but that is really extracting the michael.

[zoombini]

Methinks we need pictures of this Gas meter so that we can compare them to pictures of Stuarts shed.

I wonder if there is a www.readersgasmeters.com website?

[keithwalton]

In our house the gas meter (and leccy) are prepay, and have some basic software on it that interacts with keycards so we know how much credit we have and it shuts off when we run out of credit.
It has crashed on us once before and cut off our gas supply. It compleltly hard locked up and wouldnt respond to any commands.
We called up transco and within a couple of hours someone came out and rebooted the thing and off we went. response was good, engineer friendly and best of all its was free of charge !
If your still having trouble with your meter and supply stuff it might be worth giving them a ring :-)

K

Originally Posted by Richard M

You rebooted your gas meter?
Which version of Windows does it run?

Some kind of Windows Embedded ... was there a BSOD on the readout? Or a little message saying 'this gas meter has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down'?

[Richard M]

Hehe, that reminds me - there's this huge display screen in Cardiff city centre and more often than not, I'll walk past and see the "this program has caused an illegal operation and will be shut down" dialog box.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Richard M

You rebooted your gas meter?
Which version of Windows does it run?

Cheeky yound whippersnapper!! 'Reboot' was the term the bloke used from the British gas helpline! Still, it worked

[zoombini]

Methinks its actually a hardware "reset" rather than a reboot.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by zoombini

Methinks its actually a hardware "reset" rather than a reboot.

What the technical approach - Hit it with a hammer