Having been sold a maisonette that was supposed to be all electric, I've now uncovered a live gas pipe in my kitchen sticking up about 8 inches exactly where my built under oven needs to go!

I've had the emergency gas man out to check it, it is definitely live and of the old style but he refused to lower it the two inches I need as there is no isolator valve and uncrewing the collar to replace the cap would allow lots of gas into the apartment - against Health & Safety Regs.

South Wales & West look after British Gas/Transco's pipe in our area and they have said they will send out an engineer in the next 2-3 weeks to assess it but have stated it will need a two man crew to dig up the road and isolate it from there - this will costs THOUSANDS! And apparently I'm responsible for the bill. All for the sake of two inches!

My entire refurbishment project has grounded to a halt until the problem is rectified - I was supposed to move in in two weeks time!

I'm absolutely gutted. Has anyone any ideas that might help me out?

Desperate of Wiltshire

The secret weapon comes in handy sometimes.

Can you say when the supply last had a meter.

If it's 12 months or more they have to terminate the supply at source.

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Hurray! That's a BRILLIANT answer and exactly what I needed to hear!

I shall get on the blower and start stamping my feet!

Thanks, you've just saved me thousands!

A happy Lady G of Wiltshire

Yes M'Lady, just don't mention thescruff or wawu will be knocking on me door.

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Nice one, Scruffy!..

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By eck! ©

In case anyone was wondering.

There's a little know rule the utilities have that says any service that hasn't been used for 12 months must be disconnected, what this means to the end user is, if you buy a property that hasn't used gas for 12 months, then you have to pay for a new service to be run in, probably costing several thousand pounds.

In this case they have neglected their duty.

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I have a better suggestion ....

If you haven't got a meter, get a gas cooker, gas boiler, etc and get free energy

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I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"
She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

Spot on Hoovie, like it.

My Pa In Law had a Pub in Portsmouth and even though we had gas fires all over never had a gas bill. Word was that years ago it was the Gas fitters local and his supply came direct from the Gasometer behind the Pub.

I bought a house with no apparently live gas but when they did a survey to put it in the previous supply was still live, saved me thousands.


John

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Growing old is compulsory, growing up is not!

I used to live in a house that had been divided into two flats. Upstairs had a leccy meter but I didn't. For the three and a half years I lived there I never once paid for electricity. I had a SETI farm at the time (distributed computing project) and that would have cost £50 or so a month worth just to run that :p

Back in my 3rd year at uni, I arranged for gas and leccy as you do...
Ages later, we were only getting leccy bills and my supplier said I'd only asked them for one fuel (untrue).
Anyway it turned out that the last tenants hadn't paid their bill, and so the current supplier wouldn't release the account, but hadn't told us about it! (Clever, that.) The to-ing and fro-ing took so long that it still wasn't resolved by the time we moved out 9 months later. Result: free gas, and boy did my housemates use a lot, the house was like a sauna!

*waves at LadyG*

Fae - also in Wiltshire.

Doing up my house, it has a live gas pipe, but no meter, mate said just cut it down a bit so it can hide under the floor boards and run straight to boiler

He also recon's its alright to cut a live pipe as long as all the doors and windows are open in the house..........

Stop right there.
No, don't ever do that, not 'cos your stealing gas, but, 'cos its not regulated in pressure.

Do you want a foot long cooker flame ? And the consequences. This could KILL.




I know you wouldn't,but, just in case your tempted.

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Sciatica is a pain in the Ar5e ............ and leg

...shame you cant just bolt a pressure regulator on the end

hmmm now if i was nuts enough i could tap the gas line that runs across my back garden and build a flame thrower, motion activated to fire some warning blasts to ward the damned cats off my lawn and borders......

i swear its like a feline version of that movie "the birds" round here.