Flue gas analysis to high

[stwalsh]

I have a BAXI solo which is giving to high a reading on O2/CO2 Ratio is 0.001 PPM64.
Checked & cleaned burner, not sure what to do next, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[GreenArmy]

I have a BAXI solo which is giving to high a reading on O2/CO2 Ratio is 0.001 PPM64.
Checked & cleaned burner, not sure what to do next, any advice would be appreciated.

That reading is not to high. No offense but you might want to recheck any training documents you have.

 

[stwalsh]

I thought the max ratio was 0.0004?

 

[Rodreguez]

0.004 i think

 

[andyg0507]

as above max ratio is 0.004

 

[GPSNewcastle]

Yeah that reading isnt high at all...

 

[newbie1]

blimey has anyone done cpa1
The action level is 0.008 for boilers and would indicate a service is required with atention paid to burners and heat exchanger
0.004 is what a good reading would be abd a new condensing boiler could easilly be anything up to ths reading
to orig poster you really need to either study some more or get retrained,infact if your saying you have cleaned burner etc then ime assuming your gas safe registered and as such its quite worrying you are using a fga with no idea how to interpret the readings

just did one 0.009 and rising co 600ppm now thats a bad reading

 

[GPSNewcastle]

blimey has anyone done cpa1
The action level is 0.008 for boilers and would indicate a service is required with atention paid to burners and heat exchanger
0.004 is what a good reading would be abd a new condensing boiler could easilly be anything up to ths reading
to orig poster you really need to either study some more or get retrained,infact if your saying you have cleaned burner etc then ime assuming your gas safe registered and as such its quite worrying you are using a fga with no idea how to interpret the readings

just did one 0.009 and rising co 600ppm now thats a bad reading

We all know there are guys out there who passed the exams but cant do the job...an open book exam is easy to pass (especially if you are being prompted) and I personally find it worrying when I see some of the "competent" people I come across

 

[Dave]

The Op is after advice and not a bashing from new members.. keep it cival please..

 

[dontknowitall]

Awww - it was Friday night!!!

 

[GreenArmy]

The Op is after advice and not a bashing from new members.. keep it cival please..

To be fair Dave, i dont think the OP was getting a bashing. We are talking about serious work on a gas appliance that if not done correctly could lead to a fatality. A bit of tough love is sometimes necessary.

 

[oldplumber]

Dear Dan,

Happy to be civil to those online here. However, when someone asks the most basic question I have ever seen and they are supposed to be qualified the mind just boggles, is there any training out there and if there is why are these people passing without gaining the most basic safety knowledge required to do the job? It shouldnt be allowed and we shouldnt be helping cases like this shown here as they shouldnt be working out there omho happy to discuss further

 

[Toddyplumb]

There is training out there but this goes back to experience. If the OP had passed his assessment which to be honest a days training and an exam any one with a bit of common could do, but if he then had to go back to his mentor/tradesman or whatever he could have points like this clarified without our ridicule and scorn . It is the system that is at fault.
You can pass CPA1 and not even own a FGA , where is the sense in that !
Wonder how long he spent trying to clean it ( no offence intended just a laugh)

I would agree with your final point with one change

They should not be working out there UNSUPERVISED

 

[oldplumber]

hear what you say toddy, but these people have passed their exams and still have no knowledge. Anyone should be able to refer to their viper/instructions training notes to find the right answer to a question like the one posed. Forums such as this are useful to discuss problems etc but should not be used to train those with no knowledge as you cannt guarentee the answers given are correct, which you can see all the time by looking at some posts. As far as gas safety is concerned my belief is the gas side of the forum should be restricted to those with a ticket to stop non insured and qualified people having a go based on what they have read. In answer to the original op sorry to be blunt but if one is in the position they find themselves when they cannt do the basics they shouldnt be doing the job supervised or not.

 

[newbie1]

its wasnt a bashing but how can a gas safe engineer who is working on gas appliances take what was a good reading and interpret it as bad,,now there are 2 possobilities
1/not a registered engineer
2/not competent as knowing how to use the analyzer is preety straight forward as it does the work for you but the hard bit is knowing what the reading means which the op quite obv doesnt so what is he doing using tha fga in the first place beacause if he cant understand it he could leave a boiler in a id condition

just noticed he did his acs this year so must have done cpa1 and has quite obv not understood it at all

 

[Dannypipe]

Recently did my CPA1 - They don't teach you a thing. It's crazy. I learned more from reading on the internet and the booklet my Kane 455 came with. It's a joke.

So don't have a go at people who are on here asking for advise. He's probably done the course, it's the teaching thats bad, not always the student.

 

[oldplumber]

Recently did my CPA1 - They don't teach you a thing. It's crazy. I learned more from reading on the internet and the booklet my Kane 455 came with. It's a joke.

So don't have a go at people who are on here asking for advise. He's probably done the course, it's the teaching thats bad, not always the student.

even if the teaching is poor, anyone with anything about them should make sure they ask about what they are unsure about. the course tells you about max and min co.co2 ratios as do your reference books. if you cant make head or tail of the readings having had access to both then you shouldnt be doing gas work, its not rocket science just common sense. Dont always blame the teachers or courses, half the time those on the course are to immature to be there in the first place, and i say this from experience, having been on a college based course a while back, at 46 and seeing some of the idiots wasting their own and everyone elses time. Out of 45 who started, by the time we finished, 4 years on there were 8 left and one of those never passed his acs. If you want to be a good plumber you have to invest the time and work, sadly not many of those on courses are willing to do that such that quite a few that get through arent upto the job, and sadly the colleges make it to easy to pass the exams, such that they have to approach forums like this to find the answers that they should know off pat.

 

[Dannypipe]

Well the OP doesn't seem to be immature. He's come on here to ask for help. He's responsible enough to have bought an expensive tool and from what a previous poster said, he's sat his ACS. So he's not exactly a fly by night. Newly qualified guys need help and advise, and if they don't feel they can ask without being made to feel like losers for doing so then they might just wing it, which is never a good thing. We all start out knowing diddly squat and go from there.

I had the exact same thing as you at college. The group was so big, we were split into two groups of 30. After the first year, that had dwindled down to one small group of around 10. Only about 5 of us qualified. I've worked hard to gain the knowledge that I have, but I still have loads to learn, and it's got to the point that you almost feel ashamed to ask for help on this forum for fear of being ridiculed by your peers. everyone seems to love the oportunity to jump in and inflate their own egos.

Finally, I stand by statment on the poor standard of training generally. They teach you how to answer the exam questions not how to work in the real world. My recent revist to college showed me things hadn't improved since the last time I was there.

 

[oldplumber]

im not inflating an ego just stunned at the basic lack of knowledge shown by people who have passed the exams required to be gas safe registered. As far as teaching you to answer questions, they were mainly multiple choice exams that i completed and the answer was in front of you. My complaint is that its to easy to pass the exams, that those on the course were happy to scrape by each time, and the end result is what you see on this forum, a basic lack of knowledge. Symtomatic of what the whole educational system suffers from nowadays. If people had any pride then they would look up answers to questions like this posed by the op and find out the answer them selves from the books etc they should have if they have done the courses previously, the issue here is they cant be bothered and find forums like this easier to ask, and then show themselves to be lacking in the basics and then they risk being ridiculed as you put it. I take pride in my work and I get really annoyed with those in the trade letting others down with poor work and lack of knowledge, personally I would like to see become much harder to become a plumber and gas engineer such that the public begin to realise that we do offer a worthwhile trade and are not another bunch of cowboys that the tv and papers like to make us out to be, which is sadly often justified.

 

[Dannypipe]

Well the vast majority of regular posters to this forum are plumbers, and we all ask each other questions. Answering is easy if you know the answer.

I would like to see it made harder to become a plumber (gas and water) but lets be realistic, it's not going to happen. I come on here to learn and help where I can. That's all I'm saying. I have the greatest of respect for your opinion as I have been reading your posts for a good many months now and know you tell people how it is. I think I've made my point though.

 

[oldplumber]

both been making a point and rather gone away form the original post, but Im not going back on that one tonight, well meet again to carry on discussions again I expect, prehaps we should push for harder quals elswhere, get kirkgas to start at his end.

 

[Dannypipe]

Agreed. Kirkgas is Scottish if I remember rightly. They seem to have a bit more common sense up there with most things political, so it's as good a place as any to start!

I'm off for now. Good discussion mate. Danny.

 

[Plucky]

Cant believe no one has noticed the guy is checking an O2/CO2 ratio?!?!

lol

Its the CO/CO2 your interested in!

 

[stwalsh]

Bunch of ......... last time I ask you lot anything

 

[plumsum]

hi stwalsh
wer'e not all .........,
keep asking!

 

[GreenArmy]

stwalsh, please stick around the forums. There is plenty to learn and every now and again there will be a problem posted that you will have experiance of and can reply to help someone out. Some do get wound up when certain questions relating to serious gas work are asked, which if you stick around you will find out. I'll give you an example........if someone came on stating that they had just carried out a service and on the tightness test there was a 3mbar drop and a strong smell of gas but with it being an old installation they thought thats alright and left it........i'm sure you would be on to pour scorn onto the poster. Hey, i bet youve been doing a bit of research on the analyser readings since you started this thread ;-)

 

[Surveyor5]

Re: Flue gas analysis. If on initial test the analysis ratio is 0.004 or above, it is at this stage that a strip and clean service is required. On retest after strip and clean reading should not exceed 0.008 co/co2 ratio. If it does the operative should proceed using the Industry Unsafe situations procedure.

 

[arran197]

Re: Flue gas analysis. If on initial test the analysis ratio is 0.004 or above, it is at this stage that a strip and clean service is required. On retest after strip and clean reading should not exceed 0.008 co/co2 ratio. If it does the operative should proceed using the Industry Unsafe situations procedure.

Agree.

 

[armourer]

So if I get to a boiler of a ratio 0.005 I should strip and clean it (including replacing graphite seals etc) and after cleaning I get a reading of 0.007 all is well?

(Not questioning the regulation just the logic).

I am probably not right but I would not strip and clean anything below 0.008 and yes I am CPA1 qualified.
Am I right in thinking 0.000 is perfect combustion?

 

[AWheating]

Am I right in thinking 0.000 is perfect combustion?

or you forgot to turn the boiler on?

 

[arran197]

If after s strip down it is 0.007 then yes, that is acceptable in the regs. I don't think this would indicate that the boiler was perfect though. Anything below 0.004 is acceptable to leave. As long as the rest is ok.

Not sure what perfect combustion show tbh, but the chnaced of getting it are slim!

 

[Leadbetter]

What do you do if u came across this situation on a landlords gas saftey inspection and refused to have it serviced

 

[mfgs]

Then you have to AR it as far as I'm concerned

 

[billybob150811]

Phew stwalsh i,m much more proud than you and they,ve duffed me up --get over it just to throw some petrol on this one how many people know the first thing about fga,s If you go to court can you defend yourself and your readings the first thing i do is purge out in the fresh air and get a time and date stamp and the ambiant temp then go inside and do your readings with a cleaned fga if i knew it all you,d be the first to know but as it is if youve got any tips on fga,s i,m all ears

 

[GrahamM]

Just to clarify this as per my knowledge.
Unless the MI's state otherwise anything upto 0.004 is a pass.
Any reading over this then the appliance must be strip cleaned otherwise it is 'AR'. To allow for settling of the burner/heat exchanger you are permitted a higher tolerance of 0.008 immediately after cleaning.


Was there not something mentioned here somewhere about a zero governed boiler being classed as 'ID' if it over the 0.008?