Duty holders: landlords, users and engineers

Gas safety law places duties on several different people. Knowing who is responsible for what tells you who to inform, who must act, and what you can reasonably be asked to do.

The gas transporter and the network

The network ends at the outlet of the emergency control valve (ECV). Gas transporters must run a 24-hour emergency service and the National Gas Emergency number, and respond to reported escapes and fumes. Those duties come from the Gas Safety (Management) Regulations rather than GSIUR (see 14.1). What happens between the network and the meter is covered in 4.1.

The engineer

• Be competent, and work for a registered business (reg. 3; see 1.2).
• Check the appliance after working on it and tell the responsible person, and the owner, about any defect (reg. 26(9); see 1.1).
• Report dangerous appliances. Anyone working on gas who knows or suspects an appliance can't be used without danger must take all reasonably practicable steps to tell the responsible person, and the owner if different. If neither can be told, they tell the gas transporter, or the supplier for LPG (reg. 34(3)).

The gas user and responsible person

The responsible person for premises is the occupier, the owner, or anyone with authority at the time to act on the gas fittings there. They must not use a gas appliance, or let anyone else use it, if they know or suspect it can't be used without danger (reg. 34(1)). Using an appliance after being told it is dangerous is an offence.

Employers and the self-employed

• At their workplace, an employer or self-employed person must make sure every gas appliance, installation pipework and flue is maintained in a safe condition (reg. 35).
• When they have gas work done, or control it, they must take reasonable steps to check the person doing it is Gas Safe registered (reg. 4), and must make sure that person is competent (reg. 3(2)).

Landlords

Landlords of rented homes have two separate duties under regulation 36.

1. Maintenance. They must keep every gas appliance and flue they're responsible for, and the installation pipework, in a safe condition. This doesn't include appliances the tenant is entitled to take away.

2. The annual gas safety check. Each appliance and flue must be checked for safety:

• within 12 months of being installed, then at intervals of no more than 12 months
• for a new tenancy, within the 12 months before it starts
• by, or by an employee of, a Gas Safe registered business.

The check must include at least the examinations in regulation 26(9): flue, combustion air, operating pressure or heat input, and safe operation.

The record must include: the date; the address; the landlord's (or agent's) name and address; a description and the location of each appliance or flue; any safety defect and the remedial action taken; confirmation that the check met regulation 26(9); the name and signature of the engineer; and the Gas Safe registration number. The record shouldn't be issued until every required check on every relevant appliance and flue is complete.

Landlords must also make sure no room used as sleeping accommodation has a gas fitting of a type GSIUR doesn't allow there (unless the room was already used for sleeping before the Regulations came into force).

Flexible timing (2018)

Since 6 April 2018, regulation 36A lets landlords have the check done any time from 10 to 12 months after the last one, and keep the original deadline date as if it had been done at exactly 12 months. They can also use a one-off extension of up to 2 months past the deadline to bring an appliance into line with the others in the same property. To keep the deadline date, the landlord must be able to show the records of the previous checks. If they can't, the deadline runs from the date of the last check.

Sources: GSIUR 1998 regs 3, 4, 26(9), 34, 35, 36, 36Aduties L56 (2018) paras 294–310ACoP and guidance IGEM/G/11 Ed. 2 3.4, Appendix 1network, responsible person CCN1 Issue 16 §1assessed

▸Tutor notes

• Use the artefact to ask, for each part from the main to the appliance, who is responsible and which regulation applies.
• Set a landlord scenario: the last check was on 15 March. When is the earliest date the next check can be done and still keep the March deadline? What if the landlord can't find the previous records?
• Regulation 36(10) says nothing a tenant does or agrees to do about maintenance or checks counts towards the landlord's duty (except giving access). Ask learners why the law is written that way.