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Cleaning up after gas meter removed

Safety, Regulations, Tools, Plumbing & DIY Installations

Last Post by Toodles 3 months ago

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SianiAnni

(@sianianni)

New Member Member

Joined: 3 months ago

Posts: 2

Topic starter 11/07/2025 10:44 pm

There have been a couple of similar questions here, so apologies if I'm going over old ground.

Octopus Energy removed my gas meter last September, after I had a heat pump installed. But they replaced it with an earthing cable (I can't find the post with the proper name of this cable now - one of @Toodles?). The meter was on an external wall in the hall, about 2m to 3m from the electricity meter. I don't have solar, battery or EV charger.

I'm working towards getting the suspended wooden floor insulated and making perimeter airtight (membrane below and above insulation), and there are several things that will ideally be done before that happens, the relevant ones being
- lifting flooring
- installing a new dpc and then replastering most walls up to 1.2m, removing anything and everything attached to the walls below 1.2m
- where necessary lowering radiator pipework below the joists for ease of future maintenance
- removing redundant gas pipes to two reception rooms where there used to be gas fires, and the pipe to the gas hob in the kitchen (which isn't being used obviously).

Once the floor is up I was going to borrow some pipe cutters and start cutting off the redundant gas pipes. Is this safe to do? Having read a warning about how the rooms would smell of gas, I'm wondering how long it would take to dissipate?

Is the earth cable still needed? If needed, then would it be possible for an electrician to join the earth cable attached to the gas mains coming in through the external wall to the other bit connected to the gas pipe going down below the floor. If the bracket, the gas pipe and earth cable are no longer needed then the bracket can be removed and it's one (or two) fewer holes in membranes that will need taping up.

Apologies for tiny pic, can't seem to make it any bigger. And thanks in advance for any advice!

This topic was modified 3 months ago by SianiAnni

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AgentGeorge

(@agentgeorge)

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Joined: 8 months ago

Posts: 35

12/07/2025 8:21 am

i had the gas pipe terminated out side the house in the rabbit hutch style housing.

The meter and regulator were removed and a seal fitted on supply side with warning label.

At this point all gas in the pipe was vented

There is an option to have the Gas pipe removed all way back to road but thats expensive

The earth lead was not re-connected and there is no requirement to earth bond unused gas pipes

i then removed all gas pipes inside house

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Joined: 3 years ago

Posts: 2140

12/07/2025 11:21 am

@agentgeorge We had the gas meter removed two years ago and Octopus Energy connected an earth bond cable in a similar fashion. We were left with an external gas pipe rising from underground, another section of pipework that after several joints and bends entered the house wall low down. Earlier this year SGN’s agent (I & G) were renewing the gas main in the road and I requested that our connection not be re-made - they went one better for us. They removed the vestiges of bonding, capped the gas pipe very low down but with sufficient pipe for re-connection should it ever be required (not in my lifetime!). They then cut the consumer-side pipework back to a tidy connection for me. The old broken housing was removed and they even dusted off the dust and cobweds where the box had been.

Regarding any smell, as a little ‘un in the early fifties, I recall a very old ‘copper’ that we used to heat our water in being disconnected from the flexible gas pipe that fueled it. Though there was no gas left in it, that hanging pipe stank of the additive they used in Town Gas for a long long time (years?) after. However, when we disconnected our recent gas system, there was a smell of from the gas pipe for a few seconds and this then dispersed leaving no sniffable trace as far as I can tell. I think the old Town Gas additive might have had an element in it that loitered but the one used in Natural Gas is different.

By the way, we had the underfloor space insulated by Q.Bot a few year back so now with underfloor, cavity and much loft insulation plus triple glazing throughout, I think we have just about done the lot now! The solar panels provide more energy than we use during the summer months including the DHW (Sunamp Thermino via MyEnergy Eddi)

Regards, Toodles.

This post was modified 3 months ago by Toodles

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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AgentGeorge

(@agentgeorge)

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Joined: 8 months ago

Posts: 35

12/07/2025 12:12 pm

@toodles

Mercaptan is added to Gas as a way to identify leaks, as Gas leaks were hard to detect and a few bad explosions have occurred with undetected leaks.

The smell is reminiscent of bad eggs. It dissipates very rapidly

Its probably a selling feature if Gas can be reconnected, ive always had halogen, then induction cooking, electric showers. Only GCH until the cost of a heat pump is now less than replacing a 20 year old Gas Boiler.

Anyone considering a Heat Pump should also factor in UFH, they work really well together. Also as much insulation as you can get in, floor, wall and ceiling.

ive double insulation the loft spaces both rafters and beams to reduce the extremes of temperature from winter to summer

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SianiAnni

(@sianianni)

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Joined: 3 months ago

Posts: 2

Topic starter 12/07/2025 2:07 pm

@toodles Unfortunately for me Centrica renewed the gas main in the street and to houses a few years ago, so unless I pay to have the connection from street to the house removed, I believe I can't touch Centrica's bit where it comes into the house. After trying to follow the fabric first approach, and struggling to find people to do things 'properly' I decided to go for fabric fourth last year, and get as small a heat pump as possible with the intention to continue insulation&ventilating. Very happy that I'm no longer burning fossil fuels in my home, which was always my end goal, even if the house has been a bit of a building site for over a year now.

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Joined: 3 years ago

Posts: 2140

12/07/2025 2:13 pm

@agentgeorge Likewise in the loft space; we have 300mm + of insulation between beams and the rafters have foil faced insulating boards that were installed before we bought the house. Regards, Toodles.

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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