one of my aging customers is a retired accountant mid 70’s living in a very nice area living the lifestyle of the 1950’s.

he’s just had a very nice modern bathroom fitted. being an upright citizen he told his insurance company he was having ‘major work’ done to his home.

i was called today to install two new radiators.. simple enough until he informed me of his insurance companies demands.

any ‘hot work’ must be done by a competant person under the supervison of another competant person who will then certify that the work was done competantly by the first competant person.

so all my soldering has to be observed by someone ‘competant ‘ and able to certify that the work was done competently..

anyone care to speculate where i might find such a person.. as i cant find anyone in the yellow pages/ thomson local/ rochdale observer..

Mirror?

Do they stipulate what the competency must be in? Being a retired accountant I would imagine your customer is quite competent at sums, would that suffice?

surely that only applies if you cant provide evidence that your are yourself “competent” – i.e. by qualifications or years service.

im an optio qualified competency assessor …..

ill come assess your competence for 100 quid plus expenses 😉

– in all honesty – competence in this sense is a crock of shit ….. its a paperwork exercise , folk i have had to approve as competent(despite going higher up the chain – im only allowed to make a decision on the evidence presented) because the paperwork and courses they have done says they are but are not allowed in the workshop un supervised …..

Tell them he’ll be finding a different insurance company come renewal due to their demands, and see how quickly they back down.

I’m surprised they allow “hot work” at all these days, plenty of push fit and compression options, so why bother with the risk?

“plenty of push fit and compression options”

because they are crap ?

nothing beats a good crafts man and his nicely soldered joint.

hot work is hardly a major risk. It’s also still a whole lot cheaper than pushfit options. And for obscured installation is still considered to be less likely to leak over time assuming passing pressure testing on commissioning.

Standard nowadays…

Insurers won’t insure unless you have tickets to the hilt and have been on umpty trillion courses and got all the certificates..

30 years experience is nothing in competency terms…. 8hrs on a course in Dartford run by our Nev …NOW Your talking!

Agree BTW… you can’t beat a hot joint

I don’t disagree, though brass pushfit is pretty discreet these days, just thinking some actuary with a database will take a different view sooner or later.

any ‘hot work’ must be done by a competant person under the supervison of another competant person who will then certify that the work was done competantly by the first competant person.

Are you sure he hasn’t misunderstood what they actually want.

any ‘hot work’ must be done by a competant person OR under the supervison of a competant person who will then certify that the work was done competantly by the first competant person. (Who may be a trainee)

Brass Push fit 22mm Equal Tee £5

22mm End Feed Equal tee £1.50

😯 😯 😯 😯

*Sucks teeth*
This job’s going to cost you midlife….

Stoner = what’s the time difference between fitting a soldered joint v a push fit one?

Taking into account that you can dry fit end feed for checking without having to faff about with demounting with special tools again Id say in some cases it would take no additional time at all. And even then, I can clean, flux and solder an equal tee in a few minutes.

copper is quicker, cheaper and longer lasting every time. plastic is for wimps.

Press fit is king!

Either on plastic. copper, LCS.

Plastic is fantastic used correctly in the right environment. No way is copper cheaper though, the materials are a lot more, I can run pipe with no joints for up to 100m.

Got to use the right plastic system though…..

OP, I read that as ‘if you do hot work otherwise than this, their insurance doesn’t cover it’. But it will be covered by your insurance?

and why would anyone call their insurance company for this…

Does he also ring them when he’s having new tyres on his car?

Press fit is king!

Oh how the mighty are corrupted! 🙁

For house runs I kind of agree – the barn is all in Hep2o, but for boiler room or rad tails it’s got to be end feed copper 😀

Is that what they meant by “hot work”? Is that term not used in electrician world for working on live electrical systems… and as Greybeard suggests presumably your 3rd party / professional liability insurance covers the risk you burn his house down.

Has he got a bathroom mirror you can position so that it looks like there is someone watching you?

Surely hot work refers to structural welding……… not soldering

Film yourself doing the job then watch it again later?