What is the Gas Safe Register and Why Is It Important?
When discussing the matter of gas safety and why we always need to be mindful of it, we often refer to the importance of using Gas Safe registered engineers.
If you’re not sure what the Gas Safe Register is, or why it is so important that you use Gas Safe registered engineers for any work involving gas in your home, this article will tell you all you need to know.
What is the Gas Safe Register?
In 2009, Gas Safe Register replaced the Council of Registered Gas Installers (CORGI), making it the only gas registration body in Great Britain and the Isle of Man – Northern Ireland and Guernsey joined the scheme the following year.
Essentially, Gas Safe Register is both an organisation and a list of businesses licenced to work with gas. By law, you cannot, as a business, work with gas unless you are registered.
A business can be listed on the Gas Safe Register if it has at least one qualified engineer. To be a qualified engineer, you need to have undertaken recognised training and assessments to establish your competence.
As an organisation, Gas Safe Register is responsible for:
- Maintaining the list of registered businesses and engineers
- Carrying out inspections to ensure registered businesses are staying up to the required standards
- Investigating complaints against registered businesses and engineers where those complaints relate specifically to gas safety matters
- Consumer campaigns to raise awareness of gas safety, including the annual Gas Safety Week
- Investigating illegal work carried out by unregistered businesses and engineers
- And much more
Why is the Gas Safe Register so important?
Gas is an incredibly useful thing, in that it can fire the boilers that heat our homes and power the ovens and hobs that cook our food – warmth and food being two essential components of our survival.
But gas can also be very dangerous. It may not be toxic, but large amounts in a confined area can cause suffocation. It is also highly flammable, so that any gas leak can represent a real danger of a serious explosion. Meanwhile, gas appliances can also produce and leak carbon monoxide when they don’t burn the gas effectively due to a lack of oxygen, and carbon monoxide is an odourless, and very poisonous gas.
Given all that, it is essential that those working with our gas appliances do so with full regard to their safe use and that they are properly qualified to do it.
Before employing the services of anyone to carry out work on any gas appliance, you should always check that they are on Gas Safe Register’s list of approved businesses. You can use the list to either find a registered business in your area or to check that a business or individual engineer is registered.
You can also see which services each business is qualified to provide, including those related to Building Regulations.
Remember, however, that Gas Safe Register is merely showing you engineers and businesses who are qualified to do the work in question – it is not making any recommendations and it does not take things like pricing, experience or other customers’ reviews into account.
A&D Plumbing Services – your local Gas Safe registered experts
Don’t take chances when it comes to gas safety at your home. Here at A&D Plumbing Services, we’re qualified and licensed to carry out a wide range of gas services for domestic customers in and around Colchester, Braintree, Ipswich, Maldon, and across all of Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
We have more than 30 years of combined time served in the business. That means that you can not only count on us being qualified to carry out your work to the required standards, but also that we can provide the knowledge and insight that comes with that level of experience. And we also have extensive positive reviews from our previous customers, so you’ll know that we’re a company that can be trusted.
Get in touch with us now to find out more.