Can anybody install a coal-fired roomheater?

[TerryWaite]

Hi

can anybody install/commission/remove a coal fired roomheater or a coal burning appliance or do you have to have HETAS registration or something? I am gas safe registered but its a different kettle of fish solid fuel isnt it?

regards

 

[Dannypipe]

Don't know the answer to that question. I thought you had to be Hetas Registered.....I don't know though. Probably not.

 

[tamz]

If you are in England you need to be Hetas registered to fit one but like everything else, having a ticket doesn't mean they particularly know what they are doing.

To take one out you just need a 4lb hammer and a spare 2hrs :lol:

 

[AWheating]

you do not have to be hetas registered to install solid fuel appliances but if your not hetas registered then you will have to pay local building control to sign off the installation. This can be between £150 to £250 per visit. The installation needs to comply with building regs with special attention to parts G,J,L.

 

[alexmurchison]

Hi yes, as stated above by AWheating, the HETAS is not a must have to install, if you are considered competant. My neighbour asked me to install one for them, but like i told them, I could install it but they would need it signing off by for buildings regs and the flu plating and sealing etc. As stated above another expense, which makes it more expensive than just getting someone with the ticket to do the work and sign it off.

 

[Nostrum]

You can be on a number of CPS (competent persons schemes) to sign off your own solid fuel, APHC, NICEIC, NAPIT etc all do them, same with oil.

 

[peteheat]

Hi yes, as stated above by AWheating, the HETAS is not a must have to install, if you are considered competant. My neighbour asked me to install one for them, but like i told them, I could install it but they would need it signing off by for buildings regs and the flu plating and sealing etc. As stated above another expense, which makes it more expensive than just getting someone with the ticket to do the work and sign it off.

Plumber with the Hetas cert. shouldn't be any cheaper, the courses to show competency and time lost at work cost a lot of money, why should they self certify free?

 

[WHPES]

It's like anything else - there will have to be a high profile media case where a family dies due to an incorrectly fitted soild fuel appliance before it will be mandatory and enforced for HETAS registration for an installer.

 

[P J F PLUMBING]

Hi guys do you have to be HETAS to service clean out coal boilers ?? Trianco ect

 

[tamz]

No. It can be done (and usually is) by the householder.

 

[snowhead]

If you class servicing as changing door seals, replacing broken parts and checking function of controls etc, then to carry out work for money for other people you would need to prove competence and being registered in a formal scheme would be the easiest way to do that.

 

[peteheat]

What's coming down the road is the German system where all solid fuel appliances with a rating above 15Kw must be serviced Twice a year by what they call the Chimney Sweep, he / she is no ordinary chimney sweep they must carry out a full service (seals etc) fire up the appliance and use a FGA to certify the emissions Nox being the main target, flue draught etc.

That is why when you look at the German market (and others) boilers tend to be just below 15Kw output and anything over that are gasifiers.

Too many people who buy solid fuel stoves and boilers treat them as furnaces, not unusual to hear people saying the plastic bottles (milk cartons, coke bottles etc) are great for starting the fire, imagine what POC's off those appliances are?

 

[Will_D]

When I lived in southern Germany my landlord warned me not to burn anything bad in the stove as the chimney sweeps carried swab test kits that could check for (plastic/halogens/PCB/nasty substance) residues in the soot from the stack. They also didn't have to enter the house for this as they did this test from the roofs!

The role of the "Chimmney-Sweep" in Germany is about the last remaining legacy of the pre-war government ( aka Mr. H's lot ) artificially creating jobs that didn't need doing to reduce unemployment. And yes the sweeps still wear an all-black para millitary style uniform.

Will