Natural gas pipework & inspection - business premises

[samanthacat]

Hi, Please would someone be so kind as to provide me with some assistance...
I am trying to clarify the inspection & maintenance criteria on natural gas pipework which runs through basement areas and underground in a business premises. I am unsure which legislation applies, what the employers duties are, how often inspections should be undetaken in order to prevent deterioration of pipework and potential leaks.

Thank you for your help

Sam

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

if its serviced yearly (the boiler,appliances etc)a tightness test should be carried out(but not mandatory) this would show any gas leaks and the pipework should be checked as far as practical employers have a duty of care to have these checks yearly

 

[samanthacat]

many thanks for your speedy reply!, I really appreciate your help. As far as Im aware the boiler is serviced but not sure about the corresponding 'miles' of pipework. The pipework is 50 plus years old and I suspect its not subject to any maintenance/ inspection scheme. I could do with the legal paragraph to 'convince' them with - we've had a gas leak, gas off to the whole site for several weeks. Lots of leaks on old pipes apparently..

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

the problem with tightness testing is its sadly not mandatory unless a gas line is disturbed/disconnected or new work is undertaken on a service they should do the test but dont have to if they have not disturbed the supply albeit most of us on here would do the test on a routine service

 

[samanthacat]

thanks Gas Man.You have been really helpful. I have learnt more from u in two posts than I've learnt from 2.5 hours of random searching and lots of reading. Many thanks.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

your welcome,thats why the forums here

 

[Dotty]

As Mark says, it's not mandatory but some organisations are more diligent than others. The company I work for is contracted to the Northern Ireland Executive, I'm currently running around tightness testing and inspecting each and every one of their gas installations regardless of routine boiler maintenance. I tend to perform a tightness test with every boiler installation I service but that's my preference and one that I've managed to drum into our younger oily rags!

I was originally told they wanted a strength test performed every year, while that's commendable it's incredibly impracticle.

But yeah, stipulate as part of your maintenance regime that a tightness test will be performed as part of the boiler maintenance. if you've a canteen fed off the same gas supply then you'll either have to do some sweet talking or have the boilers serviced and the tightness test performed over a weekend.

 

[GrahamM]

It take excactly 4 mins to carry out a standard tightness test which would in most cases show up the slightest leak in your gas installation.
As gas man & croppie mentioned it is good practice for an engineer to carry this out as part of a routine service.
Believe it or not, British Gas who the general public belive to be the best in the game, do NOT carry out this simple test as a mater of course.

 

[Ebenezor]

I am slightly confused (easy these days)
We have taken this Installation as a Domestic?
The original poster states its a Business premises with "Miles of Gas Pipe"
If it is non domestic the Inspection and test criteria are not as easy as a 4 minute test.
Without teaching your granny to suck eggs.
The pipework/meter would need a complete survey, a line drawing made available.
Pipework needs to be marked.
If you were to test
Test period calculated, MLR, etc etc etc.

Ebe

 

[tamz]

Commercial and industrial premises are covered under The Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974 which states:


Section 2 requires an employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all his employees.

Section 3 requires an employer to conduct undertakings in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment are not exposed to risk to their health or safety.
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT] Section 4 requires a person in control of premises to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that those premises, and any plant or substances in the premises, are safe and without risk to health.


It would be advisable to comply with the above, you set up at least an annual inspection and test regime of all appliances and pipework on the premises and keep documented evidence.
If the underground pipeline is indeed 50 years old it will be metallic and should be subject to a full survey to determine it's condition, which will not be easy to do. It would be better to consider replacing it with PE.


Ignorance of the law is no excuse should an incident occur.

The tightness tests involved may, depending on volume, take hour(s).

 

[Dotty]

If the underground pipeline is indeed 50 years old it will be metallic and should be subject to a full survey to determine it's condition, which will not be easy to do. It would be better to consider replacing it with PE.

I came across a 50 year old town gas converted to LPG installation in a college a few months ago.

1" 1st stage gas emerging into a basement boiler house (boilers running on 35sec), into a 2nd stage regulator, no upso, vent not piped externally, which then was piped into existing 4" town gas pipework running 6 floors up a service duct to the canteen feeding 2 labs on the way. Not an ounce of fire stopping between floors, no accessible ECV's and, best of all, pipework supported by blue rope tied from the heating pipes! The BST was across the carpark with some 40m of pipe buried under tarmac!

Needless to say I had the installation marked as ID before I tightness tested it. And when I did TT it my pressure dropped faster than a footballers morals in a seedy nightclub!

We've now ripped the whole lot out, PE across the carpark. 2nd stage regulators with UPSO's outside where possible, and where not (quite a bit of the college campus is accessible to the general public besides the students!) we've only the minimum amount of 1st stage pipework inside the building with the vents piped to the open air.

We've also installed gas proving systems, gas detection systems and extract fan interlocks in the kitchen.

I'm due to go test, commission and purge the pipework next week.

The tightness tests involved may, depending on volume, take hour(s).

This ain't the case cocker! There's a maximum time limit allowed depending on the type of gauge you're using, e.g. Water with an sg of 1.0 has a maxmum test duration of 30 minutes, electronic with 2 decimal places, 15 minutes, and electronic with no decimal places, 1 hour. if your TTD exceeds the maximum permissable time for the gauge in use then you must section parts of the installation off and test them seperately!

easy innit!

 

[tamz]

This is true the hours is a bit of an exageration for most but if the system is large enough and have to sectionalise, it may indeed take hours but we are talking BIG for that especially if using an electronic to 2 dp's.
What i was trying to put across though is that it is not an in and out 4 minute test.
Some I&C stuff is truly shocking.

 

[migoplumber]

the big difference between rented and owned premises is a major point as well. every rented property domestic and commercial needs a safety cert issued annually, there are many points that have to be proven safe, and a drop test is one of them - how else can you deem an instalation safe?
ebenezze is also right, on a commercial instalation you could spend hours on a drop test.
good luck

 

[Dotty]

aye you're both right there. I always take a minimum of a couple of hours on a gas safety inspection, visually inspecting the installation, measuring and working out the pipework volume for the ttd, performing the test, running the boilers and doing a room CO test and so on. Most of what i've been coming across is just NCS though. Couple of leaks which luckily were just unions needing nipping up.

At the other end of the spectrum i've been called to a gas leak, raced into the building turning off the gas, using the sniffa in the boiler house and shutting the boilers off and then putting the test on the line. Then i went to find the girl in charge of the building to get more info on the leak. Turned out there was a gentleman sitting with his window open overlooking a flat roof which was being recovered! Still got paid though! Another leak turned out to be the residual smell after the coffee machine had been refilled. That was a good one!