A Guide To Gas Safety Certificates

If you’re new to Gas Safety Records/Certificates or are confused about what they are, this guide is designed with you in mind. Whether you’re a landlord, homeowner or tenant, please take notes…

What is a Gas Safety Record/Certificate?

Upon successful completion of inspection of a property, a Gas Safe Registered heating engineer will produce a certificate to demonstrate the properties safety and compliance with gas safety regulations.

What is checked?

All gas-enabled appliances and all gas fittings must be checked. Examples include: Gas boilers (conventional, system and combination), gas fires, chimneys, gas pipework, flues etc. All fittings and appliances must be checked against the recommended frequency provided on the manufacturers handbook.

Who needs a gas certificate?

Landlords

Whether you are a landlord of a residential property, bed and breakfast, caravan site, pub/restaurant or anything of the like, you are legally responsible for the safety of your tenants. As such, you are required to ensure that a Gas Safe Registered heating engineer carries out annual checks on all gas fittings and all gas-enabled appliances.
Upon successful completion, it is important that you a) maintain the record for at least 2 years so you can demonstrate your compliance with regulators and b) make the certificate available to all new tenants immediately or make it available to all existing tenants within 28 days.

Tenants

UK law states that all gas-enabled appliances that are supplied with the property must be checked with regards to their safety, but the law does not state that gas-enabled appliance bought by the tenant must go under the same checks. However, it is perhaps within the best interest of either the landlord/tenant to do so in order to ensure the safety of both the property and of course, the people inside.

Homeowners

As a homeowner you are not legally required to have a Gas Safety Record/Certificate, but it is perhaps within your best interest to get your property checked. You can do this through an annual boiler service. Besides, boiler servicing has benefits in its own right...

Additional considerations

The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Regulations of 2015 state that where there is living accommodation a smoke alarm must be situated on every floor. It is within your best interest to ensure that all of your fire alarms work.

Contact us for a gas safety check in Stourbridge, Birmingham...

If you're a landlord in the Stourbridge area and need a gas safety check or would like to book in a boiler service, please get in touch. We’re based in Stourbridge and offer these services throughout the West Midlands, including Birmingham, Dudley and Wolverhampton. Please give us a call on 0330 113 2248 to find out more information or fill out our contact form on the contact page of our website.