You also have responsibilities for your own health and safety at work. You can refuse to do something that isn’t safe without being threatened with disciplinary action. If you think your employer isn’t meeting their responsibilities, talk to them first. Your safety representative or a trade union official may be able to help you with this. As a last resort, you may need to report your employer to the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland or to the environmental health department of your local authority.
If you have boiler cover, which you can sometimes acquire from your energy supplier, alongside your gas and electricity tariff, the annual servicing of your boiler, which normally costs £80, may be covered. If you’re a landlord, you’re required by law to have all gas appliances supplied by you to be safety checked annually by a registered engineer. Pipework and flues should also be inspected. If you’re a tenant, you should receive a record of the annual gas safety checks on the property, known as the the Landlord Gas Safety record, at the start of your tenancy, and within 28 days of any new check.
Under Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, an employer or Self-employed person has a responsibility to provide and maintain plant and systems of work that are, so far as reasonably practical, safe and without risk to health. Statutory Instrument 1998 No. 2306: The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 requires that the user of an installed system and the owner of a mobile system shall ensure that the system is properly maintained in good repair, so as to prevent danger. Read extra info at CP7 Gas Checks.
When things go wrong, gas can leak out of appliances and cause fire, explosions or carbon monoxide poisoning. To avoid dangerous gas leaks, all gas appliances should be fitted, maintained and serviced by qualified and Gas Safe registered professionals only. Whilst it’s important to have a professional tradesperson install and service your gas appliances, there are a number of checks you can make yourself and precautions you can take to make your home gas safe.