Do any of you have any knowledge of gas safety regs?

[NickNick]

Not sure if this is right bit of the forum for this question? We're in private rented property and for the first time the landlord used British Gas instead of one of his dubious workers to do the gas safety check and they've condemned the cooker (one of the burners goes out when on low setting) and found the boiler to be at risk due to the polarity being reversed. These faults have been there since the day we moved in and have been missed in the previous 6 checks. The prior ones were done in less than 10min, which the BG engineer said would never be long enough to do the testing properly.

The landlord has sent round one of his blokes to do the repairs who is apparently an electrician and a gas/heating engineer (that in itself sends alarm bells ringing to me), he's arranging to get a new cooker which should be fine as its pretty straightforwards.

With regards to the boiler however, he's removed the socket that was coming off the power supply to the boiler and claimed that's fixed it and has taken the warning sign off that BG had put on it.

I know he hasn't actually checked whether his repair has done the trick as he didn't take the cover of the boiler off, which you need to do to check the polarity. I'm not sure if he either doesn't have a clue what he's doing, or he's just trying to do a quick bodge on the cheap to keep the landlord happy and us quiet.

Do any of you know, or know where I can find out, if the landlord has to get another safety check done once the repairs are finished, or if its enough just to do the repairs? Also if he does have to get another safety check done, can he use another company?

My worry is that he will get one of his cowboys out again, who managed to miss these faults for 6 inspections in a row (both faults have been in existence since the day we moved in). I've been searching online for hours, all I can find is that they have to do the necessary repairs, but I can't tell whether he has to get another check done now, or if he can just do the repairs and wait 12months to do another gas safe check.

If he does go down that route, the only thing I can think do is to check myself if the polarity is reversed (a simple multimeter test which I am familiar with) and assuming the fault is still in place, I would have to report them to gas safe for not having done the checks properly.

 

[Sharky]

My daughter owns her own flat, but after doing a bit of DIY around the gas metre was convinced she could smell gas. She called the gas supplier and they treated it as an emergency and came out and gave it a check. Nothing was wrong with it, but she was re assured and didn't cost anything and they were happy to come out to check.
So as a first step, give them a ring. Any suspect fault, I am sure they will treat as an emergency and don't go via the landlord.

 

[I like Skol]

I like how you rate the skill, knowledge and expertise of the British gas engineers more highly than independent/self-employed gas engineers, it's a very sweet and innocent view.

The other side of this is that maybe the BG engineers are the ones that aren't good enough to hack it in the real world and the guys (& gals) that are trading independently are actually the skilled ones?

 

[NickNick]

I like how you rate the skill, knowledge and expertise of the British gas engineers more highly than independent/self-employed gas engineers, it's a very sweet and innocent view.

The other side of this is that maybe the BG engineers are the ones that aren't good enough to hack it in the real world and the guys (& gals) that are trading independently are actually the skilled ones?

Its nothing to do with that, I'm a self employed tradesman myself, my lack of trust is with the landlord rather than with self employed gas engineers in general. I'd be more than happy if he used a competent independent gas engineer, like the guy my mum uses on her old house, but that might cost him an extra £10. The only reason he used BG is because he got it done for free (as he told me, and is almost certainly why he got me to give a different landlord name than the one on the actual tenancy).

He's the sort who is never willing to pay to get a job done properly, I've done a couple of jobs for him myself a few years back, have first hand experience of this and would never work for him again. You either have to do the job properly and come away barely covering your costs (as I did, hence will never work for him again) or you have to be willing to cut corners, which is what the guys who work for him regularly (he has 30+ properties) do. Its part of why I do any repairs on the house myself (including digging up garage floor and redoing the drains a couple of years ago) as all the work he had done when we first moved in was of very poor quality.

The two things they missed are pretty basic checks, i.e. that the burners shouldn't blow out on the lowest setting (which that back burner has done since day we moved in), and that the boiler is wired up properly.

 

[gbb]

Talking to my son about this kind of scenario the other week....its all down to interpretation, experience and dare i say willingness or ability to do a proper job. Thats why when you get say three people to look at a job, any job, they'll possibly interpret it and do it...differently.
I'm sure BG has its share of poor engineers...just the same as the outside world has.

 

[mjr]

Do any of you know, or know where I can find out, if the landlord has to get another safety check done once the repairs are finished, or if its enough just to do the repairs? Also if he does have to get another safety check done, can he use another company?

I'm sure tenants are entitled to a copy of the certificate, so I think he'll have to get another check done to get a valid certificate. Most legit testers I met when renting were quite happy to show me the test machine results too, with the first one explaining the lot and subsequent ones explaining any bits I forgot or didn't understand on a different machine.

I expect he can use another company. The trouble is, it's sometimes hard to spot which are cowboys: is it the ones missing faults that others find, or is it the ones finding faults which maybe don't exist but they hope to be called back to fix, or a bit of both? In your case, I suspect the ones missing faults aren't good but that doesn't mean the Big Corp ones are necessarily any good.

As for where to find out for sure... Housing Standards at your borough/district/city council, but expect them to be overloaded these days.

 

[classic33]

Ask for his GasSafe ID. Confirm this with GasSafe, if he's not registered he's breaking the law.

You might be invalidating any home insurance by having any work carried out by a person who isn't registered.

 

[NickNick]

Talking to my son about this kind of scenario the other week....its all down to interpretation, experience and dare i say willingness or ability to do a proper job. Thats why when you get say three people to look at a job, any job, they'll possibly interpret it differently.
I'm sure BG has its share of poor engineers...just the same as the outside world has.

I'm sure they do, but there's at least a basic minimum standard of training and I can be confident they're at least gas safe registered. I've got no way of knowing whether the guy he's sent round is actually qualified and both gas safe & NICEIC approved as all he gives me is a first name.

 

[NickNick]

Ask for his GasSafe ID. Confirm this with GasSafe, if he's not registered he's breaking the law.

You might be invalidating any home insurance by having any work carried out by a person who isn't registered.

Might have to do that, the fact he uses this guy only to do repairs but never the gas safety checks makes me suspicious in iteself. Do you know if there's a similar ID number for electricians?

 

[Spinney]

Ask for a copy of the certificate, I think you are entitled to a copy. It includes the engineers name and gas Safe no. He should have left you with the tenant copy (if doing it by hand) or sent it on if it is done later by computer.
Have you been given the cert in previous years?

 

[classic33]

GasSafe
https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/find-an-engineer/
Registered Competent Person
http://www.electricalcompetentperson.co.uk/

 

[mjr]

Might have to do that, the fact he uses this guy only to do repairs but never the gas safety checks makes me suspicious in iteself. Do you know if there's a similar ID number for electricians?

[EDIT: obsoleted by above reply, apparently] and you can check certificates for electical work done at www.checkMyNotification.com

 

[subaqua]

Might have to do that, the fact he uses this guy only to do repairs but never the gas safety checks makes me suspicious in iteself. Do you know if there's a similar ID number for electricians?

sadly No there isn't unless the work being done is notifiable under Part P of the buidling Regs in England or Wales.

if they claim to be a member of a competent person Scheme then you can check with the scheme operators directly

NICEIC
NAPIT
Select
Elecsa
STROMA


or use https://www.competentperson.co.uk/

most reputable traders will be a member of one scheme .

 

[subaqua]

[EDIT: obsoleted by above reply, apparently] and you can check certificates for electical work done at www.checkMyNotification.com

only if its notifiable work ....

 

[NickNick]

Ask for a copy of the certificate, I think you are entitled to a copy. It includes the engineers name and gas Safe no. He should have left you with the tenant copy (if doing it by hand) or sent it on if it is done later by computer.
Have you been given the cert in previous years?

Yes looks like we are entitled to a copy and this year BG gave us the certificate directly, previous years we've been given nothing.