Gas Safety for Landlords and Homeowners

Millions of households across Britain rely on natural gas for heating and cooking. It is a fuel that is often perceived as a cheap alternative to electricity; some even prefer to use it instead of electricity. But for all the convenience it brings, we should remember that gas has a deadly side to it. Not only can it bring about carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of gas appliances not burning their fuel efficiently, but a build up of gas can also cause an explosion due to its high level of flammability. Great care must therefore be taken in installing and maintaining gas appliances, and also in their use.

 

Gas in the home

 

The Health and Safety Executive recommend that domestic gas appliances in the home be checked for their continued safety once every 12 months. Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, only Council of Register Gas Installers (CORGI) engineers are allowed to service and maintain gas appliances. In fact it is now illegal for an unqualified person to interfere with the gas supply into a property, or work on or install a gas appliance. Anyone installing a gas cooker for example must be CORGI-Registered. Homeowners with knowledge of gas appliance installations could disconnect and/or reconnect bayonet fittings if they wanted to - for the latest rules governing this please refer to the 1998 Regulations and updates provided by the Health and Safety Executive. But the law states that a CORGI-Registered engineer MUST be the person who connects the hose / appliance to the gas supply.

 

Gas in rented property

 

Renting out property in the UK requires that landlords adhere to a mass of laws to ensure the safety of their tenants. Among them is the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Under this umbrella of legislation landlords must:

 

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  Use a CORGI-Registered engineer for installation of new gas appliances, pipe work and flues -- the flues being the pipes and vents that remove burnt gas from appliances and out of the house.

  
  

 

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  Use a CORGI-Registered engineer for maintenance of gas appliances, pipe work and flues (as above).

  
  

 

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  Arrange for annual gas safety checks at the rented property every 12 months. Checks are to be performed by a CORGI-Registered engineer. If gas installations are passed as safe the engineer will issue a Gas Safety Certificate. Should repair work be necessary, the landlord MUST (by law) enlist the services of a CORGI-Registered engineer to carry out the repair work.

  
  

 

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  Keep records of safety checks for a minimum of two years.

  
  

 

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  Provide a copy of the Gas Safety Certificate to existing tenants in the property within 28 days of issue by the engineer. For new tenants a copy of the current Gas Safety Certificate must be supplied at the beginning of the tenancy.

  
  

 

For landlords the requirements may seem like a lot of red tape, and just a further expense in running a rental property. However, the Regulations are there for a reason -- to save lives.

 

The importance of gas safety checks

In September 2005 52-year old Charles Cook from the Middleton area of Greater Manchester suffered serious burns after a gas explosion at his home in the early hours of the morning. The blast, thought to have been caused by a gas leak, destroyed the property and damaged neighbouring houses. Mr Cook was taken to hospital and spent time in intensive care to recover from the ordeal. Sadly, Mr Cook's experience is repeated all too often in homes around the country where regular safety checks on gas appliances have been absent. In some cases the blasts are fatal resulting in a tragic loss of life from situations that might have been avoided had safety checks been implemented.

 

What to do if you smell gas

 

While gas safety checks are designed to keep you safe long-term, there is still the chance that a gas appliance might malfunction, or that a gas leak develops in the pipe work between annual safety checks. If you smell gas, this is what you need to do:

 

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   Call the National Grid's Gas Emergency number immediately. It is a freephone number -- 0800 111 999

   
   


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   Open all doors and windows to help gas escape. DO NOT use light switches or handle a naked flame. Both could ignite the gas.

   
   


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   Shut off the gas supply. This is done at the meter cupboard by operating the shut-off valve. For your peace of mind and for your safety it is a good idea to locate and practice operating the shut off valve. By doing so you'll have practical experience to call on in the event of a real life gas emergency.

   
   

Information about CORGI

CORGI started life as a voluntary organisation in 1970 following a gas cooker explosion in a block of flats in London that caused part of the building to collapse. Some 4,000 gas operatives joined the scheme initially, and by 1991 it became a statutory requirement for anyone working with gas to gain CORGI registration. Today CORGI has some 110,000 engineers operating in the UK. Their work is regulated in the field by CORGI inspectors, each CORGI engineer being required to prove their competence with gas once every five years.

 

 

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Gearing up for Climate Change

Climate Change - or as it is currently called Global warming - is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation. Simply put, when you hear terms like emissions, pollution, carbon dioxide, greenhouse effect or ozone layer - all of these terms, which you may have recently heard about in the news - form part of the global problem called Climate Change.

In the beginning of December 2007, government representatives from 190 nations met on the Indonesian island of Bali. Their (e)mission was to agree a new climate deal to replace the ageing 1997 Kyoto Protocol (named after the town in Japan that hosted the original symposium) a pact that the United States refused to ratify. The Bali conference was hailed a success. Last minute negotiations brought the United States reluctantly onside with a commitment to participate in the Bali Road Map - a framework deal to establish a new climate treaty by 2009.

The message that came out of Bali was clear: Climate change is real and it is happening right now. What's more, the UK will likely be one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of a warming world. An example of what could happen in England: rivers across the country could alter their flow rate, due to the effects of changes in rainfall, temperature and other causes that are directly linked to atmospheric variations.

Property owners in the firing line
Did you experience the Great Storm of 1987, the worst storm to hit England since the Great Storm of 1703 - or perhaps the Burns Day storm in 1990, when one of the strongest storms on record charged over Northwestern Europe? If you did you'll remember the devastation they caused. Both wrought extensive damage across large tracts of the countryside and inner cities. Roofs were torn clean away from tens of thousands of buildings, hundreds of thousands of trees were uprooted - many of which smashed into homes and destroyed vehicles. These storms were catastrophic events, meteorologists at the time claiming them to be once in 250-year events.

But the climate is changing, at least according to scientists. A mass of scientific evidence collected over the last two decades shows, unequivocally, that our world is warming. In a warmer world more energy will exist in our atmosphere. This is expected to give rise to stronger and more frequent windstorms rolling in off the Atlantic across the UK. Scenes reminiscent of 1987 and 1990 could become commonplace, properties in the UK being subject to a higher incidence of storm force winds.

Conditions are expected to be wetter too. Flash floods of the likes seen in Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall during August 2004 are projected to become a regular occurrence - and there is no guarantee as to where it will hit next. Combine this with the accelerated ice melt in the Arctic leading to more extreme coastal flooding events and the outlook is rather grim. All in all it's bad news for property owners, many of whom could find themselves faced with higher property repair bills and insurance premiums as climate change tightens its grip. The question is, are you at risk?

Assessing risk to property from climate change
Climate change poses a risk to all of us. However, some property owners are more vulnerable than others. Properties located in the north and west of the UK are likely to endure the worst of the strengthening windstorms. Exposed elevated locations will be most at risk from wind damage. But even in the cities, such as Manchester for example, damage to property from high winds may become more of an issue.

With more intense rainfall forecast to drop from the storms that cross the UK, city dwellers everywhere are going to be at a higher risk of flash floods. The problem is that our concrete cities cannot absorb rainfall in the same way as fields and soil are able to do in the countryside. The only way rain can escape is via storm drains - and these struggle to cope even now. With a higher incidence of intense rainfall events predicted there's only one outcome to expect -- more flash flooding.

For London and coastal locations the news gets worse. Rising sea levels mean that dwellings on tidal rivers and close to the coast are at a greater risk of flooding by the sea - especially in storm surge conditions as we saw last month down the East Coast. Sea flooding is a serious issue for property owners, not least because of the effects of saltwater on the property's structure.

What can you do to fight climate change?
If you think that your property is located in a vulnerable area - i.e. one that could easily be flooded, either by river or sea, or be exposed to high winds - what should you do to protect yourself? Well, short of moving to or reinvesting in a less vulnerable location, your options are rather limited. Your best course of action really is to tackle the root cause of climate change - the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the chief greenhouse gas pollutant responsible for causing global warming. Basically, using Gas or Oil-fired Boilers, Petrol powered vehicles or consuming electricity - all contribute to the Greenhouse effect. By changing our lifestyles and activities to reduce the amount of CO2 that we are personally responsible for releasing, either directly or indirectly, into the atmosphere, the greater our impact will be in the fight to stop climate change.

How can this be done in practice? The answer is to use less electricity, petrol and gas! For example, power stations pump massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. By saving energy through better home insulation, switching off lights in rooms that you are not using and changing light bulbs to energy saving ones - or cycling to work once a week - you can save on the amount of CO2 you use.

If we all took up the challenge we could collectively make a very big difference to CO2 output in the UK, and make a real stand against climate change. You will then appreciate and better understand the much uttered term "Carbon Footprint".