Plumbers NZ is New Zealand's largest online plumbing, gas and drainage resource. Plumbing exam help, plumbing news, directory and free quotes.
-
Just interested in what companies are doing to prepare themselves for when gas certificates disappear in April 2013. Has anyone started to prepare documentation for their own company, or for themselves as a certifying gasfitter? We are starting to think about what we will be doing and also making up a suite of consistent documentation to ensure our certifiers are safe and have done sufficient signing off with jobs. We also want to make sure our customers are aware of what they need to keep. All and any ideas are welcome.
-
NZS 5255 has some good info to start with is about verification of existing gas systems
-
where about is it stated that certs will end as of 1 april 2013 i have heard this several times but have never read anything offical about this can you direct me to something?
-
DBH held consultation meetings around the country earlier on this year and there have been several briefing papers since then. If you go to the Energy Safety Website www.ess.govt.nz and type Gas Certification Review in the search engine you will get some information. A lot more information has been sent to people who responded to the consultation, or who have written to the Minister of Energy. There is a working group of industry who have been tasked with working through the issues. Appendix 0 from 5261 is a good checklist, but I think there also needs to be paperwork around pipe sizing, pipe routes, declaration of conformity and commissioning information, type of installation etc - a lot of the things currently in the gas certificate. My understanding is that there are about four different stages to signing off - the problem is that there will be no national consistency. Let me know if you have any problems finding the info on Energy Safety Website. There was also a paper that came out after the consultation meetings with all the survey results. I just need to find it in my office... all quite interesting reading.
-
I do a info memo for all jobs/clients
client details
company details
installer details
certifier details
appliance details - generally data plate info + vent/flue requirements
gas type
pipework details - pipe type/size etc
worked pipe sizing equations
testing details for EVERY stage of job
commissioning details
also have additional section for extra job notes - which actually gets used a bit, especially when clients change their minds on things...!!
have now started to include photos also
-
Seems photos are a really good idear..
-
Although I think it is a good idea it is creating the certifier to take more responsibility I dont think it will come to fruition due to the pgdb the issue i see is there will no longer be a national register to track who has actually done the work the current system could work very well with a few tweeks which is what I would be basing my own certs on if it was to change. I currently use a 9 page check sheets which garantees full compliance with 5601.1 5261 and 5262 depending on the installation. I would reco,mend that everyone get a copy of the 5601.1 and 5601.2 to do any work in the future.
-
How are they going to cover the loss of income?
Problems will only come to light after the incident/problem happens.
How will they know what to audit?? on the regular audits?? when there is no third party holding copies.
And wait until they allow a flood of labour(probably from off shore) for the CHCH rebuild, utter madness.
-
hi guys,(How are they going to cover the loss of income?) i pessume you mean the board; thats easy get rid of dead wood in the organisation. I believe that the local councils should issue permits and employ inspectors then we would not need audits or disciplinary setup that just sucks up our money in the form of a levy,cheers
-
I honestly dont see it happening and definatley not under this board they would see it as giving us to much freedom which in this industry can acctually be a very bad thing it causes laziness and poor workmanship you will even get the ones who wont keep any records and deny they have done the work.
-
It is not the PGDB proposing this - oh not this idea comes from DBH and ESS and the PGDB are not getting much say. No sane person would assume they were in favour of doing away with certificates for several reasons - consistency, auditing and loss of income. They will not comment publicly as it would not be seemly to criticise a government department - especially ESS who are regulators themselves. There is a working party of selected individuals working on the details of all this - but if you don't want to see it come to fruition then you need to put pen to paper and explain why to the Minister of Energy. This little baby doesn't come under Mr Williamson's umbrella (and I bet he is glad of that). Believe me they are well down the track on this one - it's not just ideas in the sky.
The PGDB will obviously cut out the direct costs around producing and keeping gas certificates, but certificates have produced a reasonable income for them and I suspect that even after cutting direct costs (i.e. wages of people processing etc) there will be a shortfall in what it contributed to the general running costs of the Board. The only way to bridge this will be to increase fees, or reduce services. You guess which one they will go for.
There is talk of a register for high risk installations, but not low risk. Also no one seems to be able to answer the question around what happens to the existing information - who will store it, who will have access to it, and who will be responsible for it. Knowing that you can get audited or prosecuted for work in previous years it is important that this information is readily available. I think the whole idea is a backward step, but the electrical side of the equation seem very keen on it.
-
hi guys, (auditing and loss of income.) did the board ever make much out of it? i don`t think so. Certs cost $25.00 each, gas fitting companies charged clients up to $150.00, auditing was free unless you failed. If the board was making so much ouit of it, it would not have changed, i believe they will be glad when it`s gone they made the money out of disciplinary matters, if we reintroduce inspectors all work will be inspected and safe. The board will only have to police the D.I.Y./cowboy industry, cheers
-
Hi everyone. The figures I read from the Board would indicate the Board will increase licensing fees from $102.22 per annum to $130.34 to cover the cost of a $250,000 audit programme.
Alternatively they are looking at imposing a $337.50 audit fee paid by the tradersperson before they are audited.
We'll all just have to pluck some money from where the sun don't shine.
-
hi guys/Wal, well if they do that i think that it will be the final `nail in the coffin`for a lot of us, cheers
-
Wal, do you have the income figure from gas certificates? And the direct costs of running the gas certificate part of the business. I believed it was a significant sum - some $300k + in income, an I would imagine the direct costs were no where near that - wages for person overseeing scheme, storage costs for paper copies etc. The audit costs would come out of another part of the budget I would have thought.
The figures you suggest do not surprise me in terms of increases in fees - this loss of income will hit them hard. Robbo, you speak of the cost difference between purchasing a certificate $25 and sales of certificates, but it isn't just the "certificate" you are sellington at $150 - it is the testing, commissioning and certification and the responsibility for several years as well as the level of expertise you are required to have before you can even do a certificate. $150 sounds very cheap on that basis. Doing away with gas certificates at $25 won't drop the charge to consumers - it will just change from testing, commissioning and certification to testing, commissioning and administration charge
-
Hi everyone
The income in 2010 was around $820,000.00. There was around $250,000.00 attributed to gas audits.
Other figures I have indicate the total for gas certificate administration was estimated to be $722,118.00. That was based on one staff member with an overhead allocation of $115,982.00. $400,000.00 was allocated for gas audits and $120,720.10 for wages.
Hope this helps
Wal
-
So to me that means they made a profit of around $98k on gas certificates and contributed $115982 to the overhead allocation. ($820000 less ($115982 + $400000 + 120720.10) = 820000 - 722118 = $97882.00. Then if gas audits was only $250k and not the $400k you can add on another $150k = so profit was $248772.00 You would imagine that the person who does this job will be chopped if they drop gas certs so the salary will go, but the overhead won't drop by $115982.00 - so most of these costs will still need to be carried, and who knows how audits will be performed. One thing you can bet is that as these are now outsourced I think (i.e. done by contractors as opposed to salaried or wages staff) they will not be cheap. So bascially we could be having to fund a shortfall of around $250k in licence fees do you think?
-
it would suit the Board immensely to ditch the gas cert system that is full of inconsistencies and mistakes.
I asked to see 150 certs on an OIA request, they said they had lost about 20-40 paper copies( JUST after claiming to keep them indefinitely), and had never received some others, even though electronic copies were on their system of these "never received copies".
When went to the local gas suppliers and I photographed the gas suppliers copies OF THESE MISSING CERTS, and told them I had......they miraculously reappeared, except a few. These received certs had been claimed to have been filled in correctly by a legal rep for the board.
11 of them had the TEST RESULTS empty, with bloody highlighter on the missing info.....one like this was for the last work done at the chip shop that exploded and nearly killed some one.
I did laugh when some one said either cut the standard of service or up the fees to cover the loss of this lucrative income...well as the service could not get any worse....they gotta up the fees.
-
it would suit the Board immensely to ditch the gas cert system that is full of inconsistencies and mistakes.
I asked to see 150 certs on an OIA request, they said they had lost about 20-40 paper copies( JUST after claiming to keep them indefinitely), and had never received some others, even though electronic copies were on their system of these "never received copies".
When went to the local gas suppliers and I photographed the gas suppliers copies OF THESE MISSING CERTS, and told them I had......they miraculously reappeared, except a few. These received certs had been claimed to have been filled in correctly by a legal rep for the board.
11 of them had the TEST RESULTS empty, with bloody highlighter on the missing info.....one like this was for the last work done at the chip shop that exploded and nearly killed some one.
I did laugh when some one said either cut the standard of service or up the fees to cover the loss of this lucrative income...well as the service could not get any worse....they gotta up the fees.
i'm not sure how they get away with this - they piss and moan about the competencies of tradesmen that they portray to be the problem and yet they allow something as critical as a gas cert to be incorrect and incomplete - there is zero excuse for not filling out a cert properly - why the f**** are they not keeping an eye on it - impose a fine for incorrectly filled out certs if need be
I feel for you badger - putting you through it when obviously they have been negligent and allowed an incorrectly signed off/certed job to be lodged?!?
surely that would send alarm bells ringing and should be a red flag for an audit/enquiry?!?
do they not have anyone checking that certs are filled out properly and lodged correctly?
if a cert is lodged without testing details then WTF does that say about the person undertaking/signing off the job?!?
honestly my jaw has dropped - am i really that naieve?!?
-
If you found copies with highlighting on them I would suggest that goes back to the old days when the Board employed a couple of auditors on staff. They used to physically check EVERY CERT that came in to the office. They had a template that they made up themselves with cardboard which they cut out and put over the certs to show where everything should be filled in. If there was an omission then you got the pink cert posted back to you with the highlighter on to fill in the blanks, change your own copy and it was your responsibility to change the energy suppliers and customer's copy. You then sent back your cert to the PGDB. This was in the days when they gave you a chance and realised that sometimes you may have posted in error etc. I am sure that if a guy sent in numerous of these he went higher up the list for auditing. Many of you will remember that you had regular visits from Mr McIvor, who would meet you on a job randomly selected and go over it. This system worked well. I am presuming Badger that the certificates you speak of are older ones? I imagine they got posted back to the certifier and were never filled in properly and re-sent. I am also taking a leap here and assuming that these might be certs signed off in your name by a former employer, when in fact you never actually signed them off?
Integrated - you are not niave - just trusting - which I used to be but now I am cynical.
-
hi guys/Jax, yes many of us are a lot more cynical than we used to be, of course the opposite of cynical is gullible!! cheers
-
No guys these were entered and kept on record as the papercopy, the gas suppliers copies reflect this, as do the Boards copy when I requested them, 11 out of 150 is a huge %, from a batch I have been complaining about since 2003, bought in my name by my old boss the day after I told him to shove his job up his arse, all with the blessing of Uren and Hammond AND CLAIMED TO HAVE BEEN RETURNED AND CORRECTLY FILLED IN....TWICE IN WRITTING BY THE BAORD'S LAWYER.
Of note:
At the exploding chipshop, the second work done, totally unconnected to me(done a year after I left) had the test results not filled in, and the Board in writting claimed it was never returned.....but there is an electronic copy on their site!!!!
Mr Bickers may have refered to me as destructive for pointing this out, I would have thought it constructive to have this sort of stuff highlighted......unless you are trying to cover it up and then disbanned it because the system has been totally fecked up.
There really is a lot more.....we need a public enquiry, but to get that we need numbers and lots of letters to MPs and the ombudsman.
-
And you know what Badger - holes and all that you have uncovered in this system, I still believe it is a lot better than what is proposed. At least you have been able to follow a paper trail and highlight the errors. Under the new regime there will be no certificates required to be posted unless perhaps they are "high risk" (what ever falls in to that category we are yet to be told, but I would imagine it could be high mj ratings, schools, hospitals, daycare centres etc etc). How would you ever be able to follow any paper trail then. Your former employer could have a field day under the proposed system!!
-
yeah see thats a pretty good point there jax - whats to stop a former employer using your reg number details etc and continue gasfitting work without your knowledge - all they would need would be a reg number and they could fabricate the rest
-
hi guys, i see the board has watered down the supervision rule now, it is now if you are supervising you need only be 1 hour away! is that one hour walking/on a pushbike/a car/helicopter, one hour means nothing what it does mean is that pressure has been put on the board by employers and i suspect through the master plumbers,cheers
-
Actually Robbo I have to disagree with you there about MP putting pressure on the Board over supervision. MP has recently run a Quality Assurance audit of members (or at least they are progressing through the country running it) and one of the areas they focus on is how you supervise your staff - you need to provide them with a list of employees, their registration numbers and their licences and they are all checked and verified from the PGDB website. You need to go through with them just how staff are supervised. It doesn't seem to me to be in MP interests to not have staff supervised. You know there is a misconception that just because an employer you are trying to A) rip off your staff b) rip off the system or c) do both. While it may be true in some cases it certainly is not a general rule. As an employer it is not in my interests to have staff unsupervised - I need jobs done properly, I need them done competently and our company's reputation is only as good as the last job any of my staff have done. I want properly trained apprentices who will become good tradesmen/women who will then train good apprentices etc - this is how you grow your business. I do not put apprentices in vans by themselves until year 4 (if they are exceptional - or perhaps an adult apprentice with years behind him, or another trade) - or else they don't go out until they are fully qualified. I appreciate that if we did heaps of domestic work rather than a smaller portion fo domestic and larger commercial, then I might have to re-think. I would hate readers of this forum to think that all employers are looking for short cuts - in the end it is often them that will suffer the financial consquences of breaking the rules. MP too does stand for maintaining industry standards and would never lobby the PGDB to soften supervision. They may pressure them to define it better - but I can't say whether they have or not. I too read this policy and wondered when skyping, or taking photos on your cell phone of testing and emailing them to a supervisor will be acceptable. Time will tell. Obviously superivison from overseas while on a long holiday will not be ok!!
-
hi guys/Jax, you would disagree you are an employer(user)the system would suit you. I said that i suspect it was the master plumbers who put pressure on as it seems to me that they would be able to put up a good argument for change, cheers
-
Actually Robbo I don't agree that having a supervisor a hour away is acceptable. Direct supervision means just that - I believe the supervisor should be within eyesight or earshot of the apprentice they are supervising, or the exemption holder. To be honest I'm not a big fan of exemptions - unless it is used in the case where an apprentice has become registered in one trade and has completed their apprenticeship but has yet to pass the examination in the other trade. I believe that people who take on apprentices should have to prove to the ITO that they do not intend to cast the apprentice aside in a van at the earliest opportunity. I have a been with my competitors who do not provide adequate supervision because I can never meet them on price - they will obviously be much cheaper - until such time as that unsupervised and person buggers something up. I also believe that when you sign up a trainee - you sign up to an obligation to train - and to train means that someone must be there teaching them - it doesn't mean giving them a phone, putting them in a van and telling them to call you if they don't understand. I think the policy on supervision has been watered down, but again I don't believe MP would have been behind it. The reality for the Board is that there are insufficient Certifiers - why? Because there is no continuation of study from an apprenticeship, for a lot there is no enticement financially between what they are being paid as a licensed person and what they might earn as a certifier, and many simply do not want to take on the responsibility that comes with being a certifier. I believe that the ITO should monitor the ratio of tradespeople to apprentices and if they do not believe there are enough tradespeople then a company should not be able to sign up another apprentice. And just for the record - I am dead against supervisors that do not work for the same company as the person they are supervising - how the hell does that work??
-
I would suspect that alot of this watering down is directly related to the rebuild of chch and the fact that the gubberment has the intent of using their resource of cheap unskilled labour for the rebuild...
-
I totally agree the cert system needs to be maintained, preferably with handwritten signed copies kept by a competent/honest third party and a copy kept by the gas supplier....its bloody gas for Christ sake. It will only become apparent there is a problem AFTER you have an incident and yes someone like my old boss will have a field day when the Board wash their hands of the responsibility of the gas certs.
It is the hypocrisy and lies that get me...oh and the incompetence.
At least it is now clear why they occupy a large glass building...... it is to accommodate all the window lickers.
-
Wow I have actually just read the ministry report on the ESS site in regards to the changes and must say it seems to be a very blind change looked at through rose coloured Glasses to acctually think that comusmers are going to save with the new system is a joke I dont know anyone that will reduce there fee just because they dont have to buy a $25 cert from the board, we are still responsible for the work done and for any future audits. not to mention increases from the board to cover there loses!!
Although they claim this is for both the consumer and the tradesman I can see some gasfitters getting very burnt by this!!
-
Amazing isn't it - and do you like how it is buried in the ESS pages? Just how many gasfitters do you think there are out there who are completely unaware of what is going on - and whom will be hit between the eyes with a brick when it happens? I totally agree that it is unlikely to effect any savings for the consumer simply because the gasfitter won't have to purchase a certificate from the PGDB. I presume you have read the submissions etc - not a huge number of those either. There was an enormous amount of email traffic between several people involved in the gas industry and MED/ESS over the Christmas period - but none of it seems to have made a blind bit of difference. I have yet to meet anyone (besides those employed by the Government Departments) who think this is a good idea - and that includes Master Plumber and Federation members. It's almost like DBH, MED and ESS have got some serious blinkers on - and are absolutely bloody minded about throwing out the baby with the bath water. I would encourage posters to read the full report on the ESS website - it makes for some pretty interesting stuff.
-
I recall reading that a limit/cost indicator was being set for the monetary charge of a cert under the new system, do anyone know what it was, if I remember rightly it was below $10, I may be wrong.
-
Had'nt seen anything about that but to tell the truth I dont see the taking the cost away from the gas certs changing what people are charging for the certs, They are putting more responsibility on us to develop and store them. At least we can garantee they dont get tampered with!! ;)