hi guys, here is a person openly admitting and describing to all his readers how he carried out plumbing work without a licence, do you think the P.g.d.board should have a word with him?
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Flushed with pride after a victory against the cistern.. Joe Bennett. The Press 19/08/2015.
The thing that flushes the lavatory went bung.
Now, I am one of the few people who know that the thing is called a cistern rather than a system (and congratulations, madam, on being another; we really should get together for a weekend of pedantry and despair) but I am not one of the many people who know how the thing works.
Water was entering the cistern just fine.
But it was also exiting the cistern just fine, without pausing to gather.
So the pan was washed with a perpetual tinkling trickle, easy on the ear in a new-age sort of way, but not achieving the function for which cisterns were designed. So I rang the plumber.
The plumber couldn't make it till the following Wednesday.
Over the intervening days I grew quite skilled at a bucket-based alternative flushing system, but eventually, as is the way of things, Wednesday came and the plumber, as is also the way of things, didn't.
At four in the afternoon I rang him, got no answer and said words.
And then, dear reader, well, I confess that I don't know what came over me, but - and if you have breath in your lungs prepare to gasp it now - I lifted the lid from the cistern.
I know, I know, you don't need to tell me.
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DIY is all well and good, but there are two mysteries that mortals should shun, one being electricity, the other plumbing.
Electricity is an obvious no-no, being a lethal form of magic.
Plumbing ought to be possible, because water is visible and it responds to gravity - which is why it is gets the nod over electricity for flushing lavatories.
But whereas electricity lives in wires and makes no effort to go elsewhere, water is obsessed with escape.
Make one small hole in a water pipe and it's like cutting the wire at Paremoremo. Suddenly every molecule of water in your house is desperate to get out.
Which is why plumbing should be left to plumbers.
But by lifting the lid I had made the first move and reckless now of what might happen I peered into the unknown.
The inside of the cistern looked reassuringly mechanical.
Holding my breath, I closed a tap, unclipped a clip and lifted out the flushing mechanism. At its base a rubber seal.
When, 20 minutes later, I casually laid the mechanism on the table at Ferrymead Mitre 10, David from plumbing did an excellent job of concealing his admiration.
"New seal, is it?" he said, and before I could give him my understated tradesman's nod he'd removed the old one, fitted a new one and charged me astonishingly little.
As I bore the mechanism out into the car park, holding it high that I might be seen, I wondered whether the plumbing profession was as guilty as the medieval clergy of creating mysteries in order to retain a monopoly.
Back home, I reinserted the mechanism, reclipped the clip, and with a rapidly swelling chest re-opened the tap.
"Yeah," said David on the phone two minutes later, doing well to conceal his disappointment, "sometimes the whole mechanism's shot".
The new cistern came in a box with an instruction leaflet that made The Luminaries seem like Janet and John.
"Reassemble the flushpipe with the reducer bush fitted and if using the overflow fit the overflow grommet into the hole and slide the escutcheon over the overflow."
But by now I had the bit so firmly between the teeth I was neighing.
I fitted my reducer bush and slid my escutcheon in little more time than it would take to exclaim "and they're off".
When the leaflet invited me to "present the cistern to the wall at the same time fitting the base of the outlet valve over the flushpipe," I knew I was cantering towards the finish line with the grandstand cheering me on.
Thereafter, it was a simple matter of screwing the cistern to the back wall and choosing the correct ballcock arm bending template for a right-hand side entry so the ballcock arm did not interfere with the outlet valve.
I don't know what you're like at bending a ballcock arm, but I'm a natural.
With trembling fingers I fitted the lid and opened the tap. No eruptions of water. Only the sound of a cistern filling. It reminded me of Handel.
When the music stopped, I raised a finger and the universe held its breath. Down came the finger and the lavatory flushed.
I looked around for someone to boast to. The dog was asleep. The neighbours were out. The valley was silent.
So, I'm afraid, dear reader, you've copped it.
(not part of the story but:How about the Plumbers Board?)   


Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/pgdb-new-zealand-plumbing-gasfitting-and-drainlaying-board/30/plumbing-work-without-authorisation/1906/

well I thought although its only a cistern it is a wc accessory and therefore  classified as sanitary work?
Am I wrong??
On another note I was listening on the national station a we while ago and there was a guest describing how he had done his own sanitary repairs or retrofit , it appears to me this is not uncommon as I have had customers also do there own after reading and purchasing of the net

I have seen a letter of warning issued from the PGD Board that was warning a rental property owner about using a home handyman to change a toilet seat. It was deemed to be sanitary plumbing. Its all to do with sanitary fixtures and accessories.

Hi Integrated

Have a look in the definitions in section 4 of the Act and them Section 6 for the definition of sanitary plumbing. Hope that helps


Regards  Watchdog

No Problem Integrated.

Here's a question though.  If a member of the public can do valves how do they get on changing a ballcock in a toilet cistern as it is part of a sanitary fixture and also what happens if they want to change the washer on the cistern stop tap? Is it a tap or is it an accessory to the sanitary fixture because who would have thought replacing a toilet seat is sanitary plumbing. Its a bit of a grey area.