Comment by vanrohan
17 hours ago
IKEA furniture is great for small adjustments to fit your needs. Not costing a fortune also makes it easier to experiment with it. Since they're so common, it's easy to find CAD drawings for most of them. I did a small hack/conversion on a Billy closet to hide some pipes in our apartment. https://vanderwalt.de/blog/customizing-ikea-billy-to-hide-pi...
My mind immediately went: I’m sure there is some German law or ordinance or regulation against hiding your Gaszähler. This surely goes against die Niederdruckanschlussverordnung.
Now that you have published this online, police will visit you to remove the Billy!
Perhaps I am too pessimistic with German laws.
PS: It looks much better this way.
As long as you can easily slide it out of the way and it isn't fixed to the wall, it wouldn't be a problem for anyone who needs to service it. Therefore, it would not be against regulations, because all regulations in Germany are logical
Good to know! It slides in/out like a puzzle, so should be fine then.
You need a vent there as well so gas can't build up.
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I really hope not! But it does look much better this way, it was an eyesore. And the regular heizung guys didnt complain when they saw it like this, so im assuming all is well
There is a requirement for having a vents if you are boxing in that device.
One high and one low one, this is so the gas does not build up in case of a leak.
Would highly suggest you get that sorted, your insurance might be void in case you do get a fire.
This look lovely and probably felt extremely satisfying once everything was said and done.
Thanks!
I came looking for this comment. I suspect Billy is the most hacked piece of IKEA furniture!
I've been pretty disappointed with "medium quality" slightly more expensive furniture from places like west elm and pottery barn.
Now I will either get older recycled furniture for quality or pieces from IKEA for cost.
Wow, that's gorgeous! I hope the other poster isn't right about violating ordinances.
I’ve just put an IKEA kitchen in. I had to do a very similar modification to fit the plumbing in.
You should add some RGB backlighting to it.
God please no
That is weird.
Why is it inside your apartment?
Does someone have to check the meter regularly?
Anyway, great job.
Presumably because it's cheaper. Ours was also originally in home; the utility recently came through and replaced all of ours with exterior units, likely at great cost (horizontal drilling machines aren't cheap)
I suspect the tragedy in Pennsylvania [1] was the catalyst. There are lots of potential issues with keeping these things indoors.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosion...
For what's worth my father's old apartment somewhere in central europe has this inside of the apartment as well, common in older buildings, my 60s built Prague residential building already have them in basement, we have also (central) heating meters outside the apartment measuring the supplied hot water, same with electricity/power meters (with online readings over fiber).
Only thing inside my apartment (well technically it's vertical shaft going through whole building, but there is small access door to meter in every apartment in case you wanna stop the water in the apartment) is remotely read cold/hot water meters with antenna.
They are usually checked only once a year anyway.
Meter still looks very accessible to me
Sure, but somebody has to be home if the gas company wants to look at it.
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