Lorna at Vicenza

When I came home today I thought I could smell gas in the kitchen so I turned off the only gas pipe in there that goes from under the sink to the cooker, aired the room and waited. Hours later I turned the pipe on again with its yellow handle and a little while later - gas..... so I called the emergency number.

A short while later a nice man confirmed that yes, that pipe from the cooker had a gas leak ...... BUT ..... he had to go to the mains metre outside and not just turn it off but seal the damn thing off too. I told him he was leaving myself and two kids without central heating and hot water and if the boiler runs on a separate gas pipe, why couldn't he just remove the damn pipe from the cooker rendering it useless and leave us with some warmth? No can do. Emergency gas men don't do repairs either. Everything off. So - tomorrow I have to get a registered plumber to come out, change the pipe, fill in, sign and stamp some forms and I have to email them to the gas company who, once they have verified everything, will send another man out to open up the mains metre and give me gas again. It might be Wednesday or Thursday before somebody comes out. I told the nice man that it doesn't pay to be honest or correct in this ****ing country and I should have just left the kitchen pipe turned off, had a bath, left the heating on all night and contacted a plumber myself in the morning anyway.

Moral of the story. If you have a small gas leak, know where it's coming from and can isolate it, buy a damn piece of pipe and just change it yourself. Do not call emergency services

Lorna at Vicenza

Managed to get hold of the plumber (who can't come out before 3pm) and he said this is going to be a nightmare, an expensive one. It's not just a case of changing the small cooker pipe but surprise surprise, it's going to be a technical and bureaucratic nightmare as he has to check the whole house and sign off on it taking on the responsibility because the gas companies don't. He said that he can't understand why they couldn't just seal off the cooker pipe leaving the boiler working but it's easier for them to just shut down the house and walk away. ****wits. He also said that a small, single leak similar to mine was found in a single apartment in a block of four and the bastards shut down all four apartments leaving four families in the cold for days. We all grow up knowing the dangers of gas and not to take chances but bloody hell, even the plumber said I'd have been better off just buying a new bit of tube and doing a DIY job.

scrubbedexpat142

Had a similar problem in the UK some years ago.

And they wonder why people do it themselves!

Isakat

Yes, I knew about this. I heard from people that they call a plumber if they know where the leak is coming from, like your gas cooker pipe. He would turn the gas off( usually there is a small valve in the kitchen) and change the pipe.

Of course if the gas leak is unknown, then it is a different story. I hope they sort it out soon Lorna and that it is not too cold outside.x

Jake.White

Sounds like a nightmare. I suspect the problem has arisen from the fact that you called the emergency number rather than just calling out the plumber/gasman as it immediately involved the big boys and their associated bureaucracy and box ticking nonsense. If you followed the same procedure here and called the suppliers emergency number rather than the plumber they would probably just do the same thing in isolating the supply and then tell you to get a gas fitter to come and fix it, the chap would then come and fix it and carry out a system pressure check at the gas meter to make sure there were no leaks and that would be it, job done provided the supplier hadn't locked it off with a padlock in which case they would have to come back to unlock it after the repair - bureaucratic hell and not what anyone needs in their life..

In terms of the electrical trade which is my own area, if you called the supplier out, depending on the nature of the fault and if it was serious enough, like a fire at the fusebox for example, they might isolate it at the main fuse and lock it off then tell you to get a sparky to come and fix it as they only take responsibility for the supply up to and including the meter. Same would apply as above if padlocks were involved though. If you called the supplier out for a minor fault in the installation after the meter however, they probably wouldn't attend at all and just tell you to call an electrician. Don't know how a situation like that would pan out in Italy though... and I'm waffling so I'll shut up now... Hope you get it fixed..

Geordieborn

There is something about this that smells (pun intended). This is the 4th case I’ve come across whereby the cooker pipe leaks. One lady who is in the buying and selling house business and maintenance told me “they all leak and it’s best to switch off under the sink every time”. Well it happened to us and I could not be bothered to get it seen to and did that for months. That was until the electric oven went bad and I had to take it out – gas pipe being behind it, hence not fixed. Turns out the pipe, standard gas tube, is threaded – no jubilee clip – just pushed part way on! I’m guessing over time heat from the cooker/weather made the leak worse. Hate to think what they would charge for a jubilee clip and to be honest it is not the way to connect gas…

Jake.White

My cooker is the same Geordie - just a threaded pipe at the back with a rubber tube pushed on like the connections you used to get on the bunsen burners at school back in the 1970s running from it to the gas bottle (we don't have mains gas) and held there by nothing more than friction. So far I've never had an issue with it and to be honest I've never even thought to check it until now so that's another little job to add to the list for the spring visit.

philat98

TIM gave out some good customer service yesterday. I noticed the difference between our contract cost and the cost of the latest offer so we went to the TIM office. Without arguments they made a 30% cut on the price of our existing TIM broadband contract.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

I had a problem with my Wi-Fi when working from home , I checked the work station on the app and it asked if I wanted to report the issue which I did thinking nothing would come of it . They called back in 20 minutes and said they'd send a technician out within 24 hours and in the meantime I could use the hotspot off the phone at no extra costa up to 15 GB a day . The technician came the next day and fixed the problem and Vodafone then said I could keep the GB a day for 2 days more just in case .
That same day I had the boiler serviced and the man came on time and also offered me a discount as a ' new ' customer despite the fact that they had the contract with the previous owner ( I have the bills that were in the boiler's documents and the discount is about 30 pct ) . I had been anxious because I d seen that the boiler hadn't been serviced since 2014 ( the flat was empty most of the time ) and I expected to pay more / need repairs .

Lorna at Vicenza

You won't believe this. I finally got connected to the gas mains again last Friday at 3pm. Central heating roaring away and a long, hot bubble bath that evening. House warmed up nicely over the weekend and then BOOM! Sometime on Sunday night/Monday morning the boiler switched itself off and nothing I did could get it going again. Despite dozens of attempts to force start it by running the taps and turning the heating up to 26°C, it just wouldn't fire up. Plumber came out on the Tuesday evening and pronounced it dead with no chance of revival. It's deader than a ******* dodo and going to cost close to €2.000 to get a new one fitted and installed. We have been living without hot water and heating again and goodbye Christmas........ hello overdraft. If the plumber can pick up the new boiler today he has promised me that he'll be here first thing tomorrow morning to install so I won't be without all weekend. Fingers crossed.

Jake.White

Nightmare. I know it's probably way too late but did you check the boiler pressure when it stopped working..? - For normal working conditions the pressure gauge should read around 1 bar. If it drops to zero the boiler can go into automatic cutout mode to stop it from blowing itself to bits and might just need to be reset and the water pressure topped up to one bar again. There is often a little red button or similar on the outside or on the top or at the back to do the reset with and it might just save you 2000 Euros.. Once you reset just top it back up with the little taps underneath, but no higher than one bar mind... And check the electrical supply to it if you possibly can... Easiest way to confirm you have electrical supply is to see if any of the wee lights come on. I'm always wary of what other trades tell me about stuff they think I know nothing about, and while it may well be the case that your boiler is completely Kaput, it may also be the case that it isn't and the plumber just wants to make a buck. Even if your PCB or the pump or fan is blown on it, it's only a couple of hundred quid to have any one of them replaced...or at least it should be...

Lorna at Vicenza

The boiler is 20 years old so I know it well and the first thing I checked was the pressure on the bar. The only thing it does is turn on so electrical supply is there and everything else is dead. The plumber was here for 45 minutes trying to get it going again. The pump isn't working, the fan isn't working, the "tiraggio aria" isn't working. It's probably the mother board but after 20 years it's not going to be easy to find spare parts for an old model that probably isn't worth repairing anymore and what with all the new laws etc. It's already been repaired a few times including the "vaso di espansione". It's inside the house as well so I'm not really willing to take any risks. The same plumber has been coming here for about 18 years and he knows I'm nobody's fool. He also knows that I ask lots of questions, do my research and don't take anybody's first word as gospel. He knows too that there is an ex dentist in this village that doesn't work as a dentist anymore after he "treated" my son who ended up at the emergency dentist in the UK a week later with a huge abscess. A lot of people know who I am because I'm the only English girl here. That also means that I know a lot of people too and boy can I talk. Thanks for that helpful advice though.

scrubbedexpat142

20 years for a boiler isn't bad - hopefully the new one will be more efficient, cheaper to run...

Jake.White

20 years for a boiler is more than not bad, it's pretty damned good as boiler lifespans go. Mine here packed up after 10 years and even then I was impressed with how long it had lasted. A 20 year old boiler is almost certainly no longer efficient in terms of what it gives you in return for what you have to pay for the gas+lecky to run it. Modern condensing boilers are pretty good and I think about 95% efficient as well as being non polluting as they only produce water vapour at the flue - or so I'm told... It's just a shame about the 2k euro price tag though...

Lorna at Vicenza

New boiler will be a condensing one in compliance with new laws and will certainly be much more efficient. Plumber has promised to keep the price down as much as possible so I hope he got a good deal from the supplier. He's already told me it will be an Arca so I've been looking them up on line.