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BSS survey fees rip off


Stevenet

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2 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I managed without a CO or smoke alarm for twenty five years without becoming dead.  

I think one of the problems is that some boaters are much different to boaters when you started 25 years ago. Look how many ask how to light the stove.

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35 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Nought. 

 

 

 

Same with CORGI, latterly Gas Safe Register. 

 

The stats are lumpy but the number of deaths from CO poisoning per year continued pretty much level after membership to charge for gas work became mandatory. A right gravy train in my my opinion. 

 

The reason is partly due to beliefs like bargebuilder expressed above, that it is all to do with running the pipes (which is the easy bit), and so untrained people will over-confidently DIY.

 

It is also due to thick/arrogant/ignorant (usually all three) technicians with a bad attitude being coached and squeezed through the training skools and given a pass, as commercial pressure makes all the skools need a high pass rate. Fail too many and the skool gets a reputation for weeding out the no-hopers, and other skools get used in preference. 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think one of the problems is that some boaters are much different to boaters when you started 25 years ago. Look how many ask how to light the stove.

Surely it would be better if these ones were allowed to execute the Darwin thing. 

 

As has been mentioned the BS scheme is supposed to be about the safety of random passers by and not the boat occupier specifically. 

 

I do remember the days (vaguely) when you would hear news stories almost weekly about families destroyed by boat based gas explosions while out for a nice walk by the canal or river. 

 

It's only fair to stop this sort of thing happening. 

 

The colour newspaper images will remain with me for the rest of my life. 

 

 

 

 

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26 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I managed without a CO or smoke alarm for twenty five years without becoming dead.

 

 

That does however, make you a member of the self-selecting cohort, i.e. posters who have not died of CO poisoning. 

 

 

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To be fair CO poisoning also causes non-death related symptoms. 

 

It's worth steering clear of carbon monoxide if possible as it is nasty and  excessive exposure causes negative outcomes.

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

 

 

Screenshot (1061).png

 

 

That chart (along with most media articles) completely fails to mention the sometimes permanent and sometimes severe injury caused to survivors of CO poisoning. 

 

As pointed out already by MM.

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27 minutes ago, magnetman said:

To be fair CO poisoning also causes non-death related symptoms. 

 

It's worth steering clear of carbon monoxide if possible as it is nasty and  excessive exposure causes negative outcomes.

 

 

 

 

Like brain damage .

 

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It's definitely a bit naughty and those CO monitors with the digital readout are very good. They do work and will give a reading before the alarm level is reached. Good thing to keep an eye on. 

Very useful item to have in a boat which has fuel burning appliances on or in it.

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, magnetman said:

It's definitely a bit naughty and those CO monitors with the digital readout are very good. They do work and will give a reading before the alarm level is reached. Good thing to keep an eye on. 

Very useful item to have in a boat which has fuel burning appliances on or in it.

 

 

 

I did get a CO alarm on the boat before they became a BSS requirement.

Also have some at home.

 

I met some young adults , one blind and his  sister in a wheelchair due to CO poisoning  when they were children.

A particularly bad outcome that has affected many lives.

A CO alarm would not have helped in their case but it shows  what damage can be done.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, MartynG said:

Where is this location that has so many BSS inspectors - seems exceptional.

 

45p/mile - probably 50p/mile  at current fuel costs

The nearest examiner  to me is a 50 mile round trip

So there's an hour or so of his time to add to  the  mileage rate 

 

MOT testers can't travel to the car can they. The overheads are diluted by the number of cars tested per day (say 8 to 10) with an almost certain supply of work which is a much bigger number than BSS tests that can be done in a day (say 1 or 2 an exceptionally 3 ) with an unreliable supply of work.

 

What do you think a BSS exam and certificate should cost? 

 

 

 

What's exceptional, is that your boat is  in a nearly 2,000 square mile area with only a single BSS examiner; clearly not the Midlands.

 

You really think that a BSS examiner has the same degree of legal responsibility as an MOT inspector?

 

I haven't been impressed at all with the knowledge of the BSS inspectors that I've had, they've not been able to discuss technical matters in any depth at all. They have certainly not been  experts in gas or electrical installations.

 

As I mentioned previously, I think £50 an hour is plenty plus travelling expenses for a BSS examination and one hour should be easily long enough to ascertain that a boat is not dangerous. 

 

My last BSS inspector advised me that smoke detectors are being considered for including as a requirement, as are the cable entries for solar panels.

 

Obviously we can't be trusted to look after our own safety.

 

Next it will be methane detectors in the head😁.

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15 minutes ago, magnetman said:

It's definitely a bit naughty and those CO monitors with the digital readout are very good. They do work and will give a reading before the alarm level is reached. Good thing to keep an eye on. 

Very useful item to have in a boat which has fuel burning appliances on or in it.

 

 

 

Agreed, but be aware that nuisance alarm soundings can be a problem: the hydrogen produced from my battery bank would regularly set off my CO alarm. 

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7 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

Agreed, but be aware that nuisance alarm soundings can be a problem: the hydrogen produced from my battery bank would regularly set off my CO alarm. 

 

 

I recently noticed an intermittent beeping alarm from a near neighbours boat at the marina and on closer inspection an odour. I turned out to be  one of his batteries which was gassing and had become very hot. I  called the marina office who passed the message on to the boat owner..

The battery charger had been left on. The shore power was disconnected.

The owner attended and he thinks an explosion was narrowly avoided .

 

The beeping alarm was from the CO monitor.  Surely a good thing and not a nuisance.

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

 

 

Obviously we can't be trusted to look after our own safety.

 

 

 

If you don't see a value in CO alarms and smoke alarms I don't think you can be trusted with your own safety.

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52 minutes ago, MartynG said:

 

If you don't see a value in CO alarms and smoke alarms I don't think you can be trusted with your own safety.

What a ridiculous comment and not in any way what I wrote. In fact I mentioned that my CO alarm detected the hydrogen from my charging batteries. Why would I have one if I didn't wholeheartedly believe in them?

 

The BSS certificate allows people to abdicate responsibility for their own safety, needing to be hand held and told by others to check their gas system for leaks and to have smoke detectors etc etc. We all have to pay around £200 every four years to ensure that these people don't kill themselves or others. 

 

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10 hours ago, MtB said:

 

 

That chart (along with most media articles) completely fails to mention the sometimes permanent and sometimes severe injury caused to survivors of CO poisoning. 

 

As pointed out already by MM.

 

Indeed - but as the chart is simply titled 'Symptoms of Carbon Monoxide poisoning' it is maybe not unreasonable that it does not go into the long term effects.

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Long before the BSS was even thought about our hire boats had to comply with the Thames Conservancy Launch Regulations, and they were inspected by the TC navigation officers to ensure they did. When we bought JennyB I ensured it complied with the launch regs and low and behold it passed the then BSS. Basically both were just good practice.

 

We used to  bring Broads hire boats into the fleet, and they often needed work to make them compatible. On particularly bad example was a pair of wooden boats that had the starter solenoids about an inch above the base of the engine drip tray so the main battery  lead terminal has got wet, corroded and there were ample signs of burning. The same boats also had their gas pipes running through the bilge in wooden channels. We had to reroute them up high and when we took those pipes out some form of corrosion had perforated them along their length.

 

I am convinced the original BSS was a very good thing, but now the way is it administered and keeps on "improving"  seems very questionable.

 

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1 hour ago, MartynG said:

 

If you don't see a value in CO alarms and smoke alarms I don't think you can be trusted with your own safety.

Nonsense.

Relying on failure-prone alarms, instead of taking responsibility yourself for stuff being safe, is a recipe for disaster. Thinking you are safe when the battery might simply be flat, or in danger because the thing goes off every time you go through a tunnel (as mine did last year for reasons still unknown) is as daft as being certain you won't sink because you have an automatic bilge pump. Half the time, and usually when you need them, these things just don't work.

Plus, as far as CO alarms are concerned, it's impossible to fit them as per the specs in a boat anyway. Which is possibly why mine was perfectly happy with a woodburner pumping fumes into the boat through an undiscovered hole at the back of the flue for several weeks.

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45 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:

What a ridiculous comment and not in any way what I wrote. In fact I mentioned that my CO alarm detected the hydrogen from my charging batteries. Why would I have one if I didn't wholeheartedly believe in them?

 

The BSS certificate allows people to abdicate responsibility for their own safety, needing to be hand held and told by others to check their gas system for leaks and to have smoke detectors etc etc. We all have to pay around £200 every four years to ensure that these people don't kill themselves or others. 

 

 

Apparently boaters are going to be asked to fix at least two of these stickers to each craft at the next BS inspection:

 

IMG_20220619_100106.jpg.4270d26cb5e1be824f2bad22957bb99f.jpg

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9 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Nonsense.

Relying on failure-prone alarms, instead of taking responsibility yourself for stuff being safe, is a recipe for disaster. Thinking you are safe when the battery might simply be flat, or in danger because the thing goes off every time you go through a tunnel (as mine did last year for reasons still unknown) is as daft as being certain you won't sink because you have an automatic bilge pump. Half the time, and usually when you need them, these things just don't work.

Plus, as far as CO alarms are concerned, it's impossible to fit them as per the specs in a boat anyway. Which is possibly why mine was perfectly happy with a woodburner pumping fumes into the boat through an undiscovered hole at the back of the flue for several weeks.

On a boat there are obviously pockets of air which do not move, therefore you need more than one alarm. The CO ones sometimes chirp due to various factors, outside boats, inside batteries, but it is not a bad thing to be alerted, then one can investigate and ventilate.

While we are on this subject, my mushroom vents seem to intake air rather than exhale. This is very annoying, other than installing fans, is there a remedy?

CO is about the same density as air, so they need to be positioned at your nostril height.

Smoke alarms also work in a similar way, I have had one go off when lighting the stove recklessly, and the one over the cooker does not, and vice versa. If a full on fire occurred then both would go off, but my idea is to be alerted when the situation is controllable.

Edited by LadyG
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19 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Nonsense.

Relying on failure-prone alarms, instead of taking responsibility yourself for stuff being safe, is a recipe for disaster. 

Then how do you otherwise detect carbon monoxide which is invisible and has no odour?

 

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1 hour ago, Bargebuilder said:

 

 

The BSS certificate allows people to abdicate responsibility for their own safety

 

That's a ridiculous statement too.

 

You seemed to be criticising co detectors for false alarms due to battery gas  which is why I thought you meant they were a nuisance.  

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