For some strange reasons, people over here seem to like keeping their gas meters in the house. Besides being an eyesore, they also take up space and are actually quite dangerous. Just think about it .. the majority of the piping is to get the gas from the outside to the inside. If there is any leaks on the mains side of the meter, there is no way to shut of the gas. Uh, no thanks.
The drawback of moving the meter is that it is definitely not a DIY job. For the record, I have worked with high pressure gas piping before but definitely not in my house. My insurance would probably have a thing or two to say about it as well.
So, this post is mostly DBSE (done by someone else) ..
So, firstly the ugly old meter monster under the stairs. OK maybe not too old as we swapped it out for a smart meter a while back, but definitely ugly and definitely under the stairs.
And if by magic, it vanished.
In fact, I arranged for SGN (https://www.sgn.co.uk/) to come by and pipe the meter outside in a little NEMA4 box.
They brought their hammers and shovels with them. I have to say the smashed up driveway actually doesn't look much worse than the non-smashed up driveway.
They found the old pipe, connected in and diverted it to the new location.
We went with a semi-concealed box as it was .... uh, semi-concealed. The alternative was some massive metal box that they were going to plonk on the side of the wall. One ugly indoor monstrosity would have become one ugly outdoor monstrosity - no thanks.
I was going to try and wedge the little half buried box where the air brick was but apparently SGN cannot block off an air brick - they could before but not now. The box ended up gong on the side. I was worried at first but actually don't think it looks all that bad. And while you're admiring the box, also admire the amazing bricks and pointing (they will not be around for long as you'll see in a future post).
Warning the contents in this box may self destruct.
The meter seemed very happy in it's new home which had a retractable roof and an open concept feel to it ...
Watch your step. Blinds went up in case people didn't realise the driveway was all smashed up.
And that was pretty much it for SGN on Day 1 - 3 guys and about 2.5 hours of work. Pretty efficient.
Next I needed to get the gas installed back into the house. SGN doesn't do this part, but I gave Tom Anderson a ring. Unfortunately, his truck failed the MOT on the day he planned on coming by (bad timing) but he nicely sent his colleague Aaron over - who did our boiler piping just over a year ago.
New copper piping was run under the floor boards .. I helped lift them so I wasn't a complete idle bystander in this process.
I also put some new floorboards back down. The meter monstrosity under the stairs is now gone. And the best part is that the smart meter function still appears to work. I'll say that was by design :)
A couple of days after, SGN sent a truck by to pick up the rubble and another day later, a guy came by to re-instate the paving. This wasn't really necessary as we're doing the driveway soon enough but it was all included in the cost so why not.
So there you go .. our 'innie' meter is now an 'outtie' meter. It wasn't a cheap job, but best to do it now before we finish the floors or do the driveway. Which BTW is coming up shortly ...
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