Natural gas is an essential fuel for various home utilities. As a property owner, you’ll rely on gas appliances to cook your food, heat your house, and give you hot water. However, you should always be cautious when using it to ensure that you, your family or tenants stay safe.
In this article, we’ll discuss the main gas safety tips to prevent any safety incident or accident from taking place. Take a look.
- Undertake Regular Safety Checks
All gas appliances need to be serviced at least once every year by a Gas safety registered engineer. Hence as the landlord, estate agent or the homeowner in London, it is your duty to abide by the set gas safety rules and regulations.
Therefore, you need to ensure that all the appliances in your home or those that you give to tenants are examined. Make sure the engineer does a tightness check on your pipework, it will help note whether there is a leakage or not. Once the engineer certifies that your appliances are safe to use, they’ll give a gas safety certificate.
- Know the Potential Warning Signs
Do you know how to detect a gas leak in your property? If not, how will you address the problem?
As a landlord, you need to know the warning signs of a gas leak. Such will include soot marks or stains near the gas appliance, yellow flames in your boiler or excessive condensation. Knowing this helps you to take an affirmative action before it grows out of hand.
Of course, your gas appliances may still be unsafe even when these signs are not apparent. That is why you need to undertake annual maintenance checks by a certified engineer.
- Install a Carbon Monoxide Alarm
Carbon monoxide is an odorless gas that’s attributed to 4 percent of all the deaths annually. Even you should be careful during the rubbish removal from your backyard, The fact that’s odorless makes it hard to detect until after its late and poisoning has taken place. But all this can be reduced if homeowners and landlords install this alarm in their property.
Are you ready to play your part? Install an alarm near your gas appliances. Further, you need to familiarize yourself with various symptoms resulting from this poisoning. These will include headaches, nausea, and dizziness, loss of consciousness, breathlessness, and collapse to stay safe.
- Hire a Gas Safety Engineer for Your Home Improvements
Are you planning to renovate your home? If yes, will it touch on your gas appliances or pipework? Then, have a gas safety engineer to do this work.
The problem with involving builders or subcontractors is that they may not appreciate the importance of gas safety. It is therefore important to hire someone who can do appropriate checks on your property.
Conclusion
As a landlord or homeowner, you owe yourself andthe occupants to your home a safe and healthy living environment. It is therefore important to engage professional gas safety engineers to do annual checks on your gas appliances. If you smell a leak, leave the premises and call an expert from a safe distance. Don’t attempt to shut the line all by yourself.
