It was on a Wednesday (not Monday) morning.......

Warning, this is ultra boring even in comparison to the other stuff we write.

For the older UK readers, you might recall the Flanders and Swann song about the gasman coming to call (if not, look at you tube clip to appreciate the style of humour). Well, it was on a Wednesday not a Monday but the gasman did come to call. 

The boat has a gas hob with two propane cylinders in an aft locker to feed it. Some time ago a new regulator and solenoid valve were fitted together with the "pigtails" that link to the cylinders from the regulator. However, the gas piping through the boat was the original and certainly not to the UK Gas Safe regulations. It also made us sleep a little less happily than we would like so the time had come to renew it.

We were recommended Stuart from Gas Safety Marine and it was a good move. He fought his way through an M5 closure to get to Penarth and then replaced pretty much everything bar the solenoid valve between the cylinders and the hob. Getting the electric Miele oven out from the housing was amusing but with some advice from an ex Nordhavn Europe man, it surrendered, allowing access to the gas fitting under the hob:

The amount of dust in the housing was impressive. You can also see the new pipe -- flexible stainless steel with a yellow sheathing - waiting to be connected:

and some insulation with nice Chinese symbols on it. Pulling the new pipe through the lazarette, then into the engine room and up to the hob was tricky but luckily the builders had fitted a nice big piece of conduit in the blind area behind the port fuel tank. The new pipe ran through there OK and then up to the hob. 

Here are the renewed gas locker fittings with just the original solenoid valve being reused:

So, we now have a gas safety certificate, pipework from the cylinders to the regulator that is OK to 2033 (doubt that will worry us) and a regulator that is good for 6 years. Well worth doing. If you get tempted then check out Stuart's website