Fake boiler certificates
Jan 15, 2017 9:58:52 GMT
via mobile
keith6233, drumkilbo, and 7 more like this
Post by simonhudson on Jan 15, 2017 9:58:52 GMT
Hi Heronsgate & everyone.
I recognise your description there, and that boiler inspector is me. The 'workshop/dealer' is The Steam Workshop, and I am also that companies' director. There are however a number of key omissions to your description. Let me first say that as a fellow, lifelong enthusiast I'm very proud of what we do, and I feel that we are providing a fresh, and valuable service for our hobby. Jackrae,..... useful, very useful,..... thanks for your informed, intelligent words.
The club (for which I am an inspector) that you describe does in fact receive a full membership fee, (£10 per year in this case as there is no public liability insurance included) for every owners model tested. Membership of the society is not 'honourary' and free as you describe.
In my capacity as a boiler inspector, I also take clear videos of every single hydraulic test performed, so that there can be no question of there being any fakery. I generally by default perform a shell test to twice working pressure on models, rather than the 1 1/2 times repeat test sometimes required by the guidelines. The steam tests conducted are filmed, so that clear evidence is collected at the time of the test. I do this to insure complete clarity and peace of mind, to produce a growing and invaluable archive for the future of both the models and our hobby,..... and also in truth to protect myself from any suggestion of their being a conflict of interest that could lead me toward dishonesty.
The dates upon the certificate are indeed sometimes dated after the actual test date, (the guidelines allow 14 days,.... that's why there are different boxes provided). The reason for their being a limit to the time between test and cert issue date is because it obviously becomes increasingly difficult to know what's happened to the boiler during that time. As an inspector, I don't actually have that problem either if it's a model that has come through TSW. I generally know that it's been sitting on the shelf where one of the staff put it ever since I performed the test.
I do indeed write out written schemes for models that don't present with them, or with any prior history. That's absolutely in accordance with both the spirit of the written scheme and the guidelines. Why not? It's a great opportunity to try to begin to track the models continuing history, and what better time to start that than immediately after a thorough examination by experienced professionals.
It's worth noting here that 50% of the models that present to The Steam Workshop with a current valid boiler certificate in fact fail the steam test. The safety valves are often of insufficient capacity to pass an accumulation test against the blower with a decent fire. The valves are just not big enough, and these boilers can not have legitimately earned their certificates in the past. TSW re-machine or make new safety valves for these 50% so that when I as the boiler inspector issue a ticket, I can stake my reputation as an inspector upon that boiler having 'actually' passed, and as I say,.... I film it too as proof. How many clubs or indeed other club inspectors can claim such a rigorous and safety focussed approach to testing?
Sadly, the true conflict of interest actually lies within model engineering societies. Inspector 'X' is under genuine peer pressure to let things slide or turn a blind eye for his friends and fellow club members boilers. Inspector 'x' is incentivised not to look that hard, because nobody wants their mates models to fail. There's always an Inspector 'y', who is overly pedantic, has his own ideas about what boiler testing should be, will be so negative that you even feel awkward to ask in the first place,.....(yes, you know him, every club has one!),.... so inspector 'x' is always the favoured choice.
There is no incentive for me to favour inspector 'x's approach. There is also no incentive for me to be inspector 'y'. In my capacity as inspector, the only incentive is for me to describe the boilers I test as accurately and fairly as I can,..... if they pass the current guidelines, they pass. If they fail,..... they fail, and The Steam Workshop steps in and fixes them or indeed pays for them to be fixed or replaced. If they pass with a weap, the weap is noted and described on the certificate so that it can be monitored in the future. This rarely happens in the society environment,..... (I've literally never seen a presenting certificate yet with a noted weap on it despite testing many). The existence of the pedantic inspector 'y' incentivises the nice inspectors 'x' to omit it, lest they be pulled up for passing a boiler with a 'problem'!
Beyond these obvious conflicts, the certificates are overly complex, so a hefty proportion of boiler inspectors just simply and genuinely don't know how to use them.
A penultimate word on the subject of this thread. Fake certificates. I'm quite sure that they do exist, and I'm quite sure that those individuals responsible have done it to gain financially, and have therefore acted fraudulently, illegally and immorally. It would be superb to expose and prosecute them. However, if your interest is that of safety within our hobby, my experience as a boiler inspector has taught me that you are chasing the 0.01% here, when there is a fully legitimate 50% of certificates that are inaccurate representations of the models they describe.
A final word on the safety of boilers and the risks involved. Get a grip people! . There's a reason why our insurance premiums are so low, despite, forgive me, the systemic incompetence of club testing,..... and it's because our boilers are not particularly dangerous in the first place! A full size locomotive with 275psi has a staggering amount of square inches, and therefore a staggering amount of pounds trying to get out. A simplex at 80psi,.... (the weight of a small woman) on each of it's relatively few square inches and I could probably muffle it's pop with a decent pillow! I exaggerate of course, and we must respect the actual risks, but let's try to keep things in perspective.
Ironically the true threat to our hobby has never been the boiler. It's the negative people, the ignorant ones that love a good moan, love to be heard, but are afraid to be responsible.
I recognise your description there, and that boiler inspector is me. The 'workshop/dealer' is The Steam Workshop, and I am also that companies' director. There are however a number of key omissions to your description. Let me first say that as a fellow, lifelong enthusiast I'm very proud of what we do, and I feel that we are providing a fresh, and valuable service for our hobby. Jackrae,..... useful, very useful,..... thanks for your informed, intelligent words.
The club (for which I am an inspector) that you describe does in fact receive a full membership fee, (£10 per year in this case as there is no public liability insurance included) for every owners model tested. Membership of the society is not 'honourary' and free as you describe.
In my capacity as a boiler inspector, I also take clear videos of every single hydraulic test performed, so that there can be no question of there being any fakery. I generally by default perform a shell test to twice working pressure on models, rather than the 1 1/2 times repeat test sometimes required by the guidelines. The steam tests conducted are filmed, so that clear evidence is collected at the time of the test. I do this to insure complete clarity and peace of mind, to produce a growing and invaluable archive for the future of both the models and our hobby,..... and also in truth to protect myself from any suggestion of their being a conflict of interest that could lead me toward dishonesty.
The dates upon the certificate are indeed sometimes dated after the actual test date, (the guidelines allow 14 days,.... that's why there are different boxes provided). The reason for their being a limit to the time between test and cert issue date is because it obviously becomes increasingly difficult to know what's happened to the boiler during that time. As an inspector, I don't actually have that problem either if it's a model that has come through TSW. I generally know that it's been sitting on the shelf where one of the staff put it ever since I performed the test.
I do indeed write out written schemes for models that don't present with them, or with any prior history. That's absolutely in accordance with both the spirit of the written scheme and the guidelines. Why not? It's a great opportunity to try to begin to track the models continuing history, and what better time to start that than immediately after a thorough examination by experienced professionals.
It's worth noting here that 50% of the models that present to The Steam Workshop with a current valid boiler certificate in fact fail the steam test. The safety valves are often of insufficient capacity to pass an accumulation test against the blower with a decent fire. The valves are just not big enough, and these boilers can not have legitimately earned their certificates in the past. TSW re-machine or make new safety valves for these 50% so that when I as the boiler inspector issue a ticket, I can stake my reputation as an inspector upon that boiler having 'actually' passed, and as I say,.... I film it too as proof. How many clubs or indeed other club inspectors can claim such a rigorous and safety focussed approach to testing?
Sadly, the true conflict of interest actually lies within model engineering societies. Inspector 'X' is under genuine peer pressure to let things slide or turn a blind eye for his friends and fellow club members boilers. Inspector 'x' is incentivised not to look that hard, because nobody wants their mates models to fail. There's always an Inspector 'y', who is overly pedantic, has his own ideas about what boiler testing should be, will be so negative that you even feel awkward to ask in the first place,.....(yes, you know him, every club has one!),.... so inspector 'x' is always the favoured choice.
There is no incentive for me to favour inspector 'x's approach. There is also no incentive for me to be inspector 'y'. In my capacity as inspector, the only incentive is for me to describe the boilers I test as accurately and fairly as I can,..... if they pass the current guidelines, they pass. If they fail,..... they fail, and The Steam Workshop steps in and fixes them or indeed pays for them to be fixed or replaced. If they pass with a weap, the weap is noted and described on the certificate so that it can be monitored in the future. This rarely happens in the society environment,..... (I've literally never seen a presenting certificate yet with a noted weap on it despite testing many). The existence of the pedantic inspector 'y' incentivises the nice inspectors 'x' to omit it, lest they be pulled up for passing a boiler with a 'problem'!
Beyond these obvious conflicts, the certificates are overly complex, so a hefty proportion of boiler inspectors just simply and genuinely don't know how to use them.
A penultimate word on the subject of this thread. Fake certificates. I'm quite sure that they do exist, and I'm quite sure that those individuals responsible have done it to gain financially, and have therefore acted fraudulently, illegally and immorally. It would be superb to expose and prosecute them. However, if your interest is that of safety within our hobby, my experience as a boiler inspector has taught me that you are chasing the 0.01% here, when there is a fully legitimate 50% of certificates that are inaccurate representations of the models they describe.
A final word on the safety of boilers and the risks involved. Get a grip people! . There's a reason why our insurance premiums are so low, despite, forgive me, the systemic incompetence of club testing,..... and it's because our boilers are not particularly dangerous in the first place! A full size locomotive with 275psi has a staggering amount of square inches, and therefore a staggering amount of pounds trying to get out. A simplex at 80psi,.... (the weight of a small woman) on each of it's relatively few square inches and I could probably muffle it's pop with a decent pillow! I exaggerate of course, and we must respect the actual risks, but let's try to keep things in perspective.
Ironically the true threat to our hobby has never been the boiler. It's the negative people, the ignorant ones that love a good moan, love to be heard, but are afraid to be responsible.