The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
What the Regulations require, who they apply to and the regulations you'll use most.
This topic supports
- M01.1Summarise the duties the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 place on engineers, landlords and gas users.
Draft: this lesson hasn't yet been technically reviewed.
The (GSIUR) are the main law for gas work in Great Britain. They set out how gas fittings, appliances and flues must be installed, maintained and used, and who may do the work. Almost everything else in this course is a way of meeting them.
Where they apply
GSIUR covers gas systems mainly in domestic and commercial premises: homes, offices, shops, hotels, schools, hospitals and similar places. It also covers caravan holiday homes, hired touring caravans, boats hired out to the public, and sleeping accommodation wherever it is.
It doesn't generally apply in factories, mines, quarries, sewage works and farms, except for any parts used as homes or sleeping accommodation. Other safety law still applies there.
"Gas" in the Regulations includes both natural gas and LPG.
What counts as "work"
GSIUR defines work on a gas fitting widely. It includes:
- installing or reconnecting it
- maintaining, servicing, permanently adjusting, disconnecting, repairing, altering or renewing it, or purging it of air or gas
- moving it, where it isn't readily movable
- removing it.
It doesn't include connecting or disconnecting a bayonet fitting or other self-sealing connector. The definition applies to anyone, employee or not, so DIY gas work is still "work" under the law.
How the Regulations are arranged
| Part | Covers | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| A | General | Definitions; where GSIUR applies (reg. 2) |
| B | Gas fittings in general | Competence and registration (reg. 3); duties on employers (reg. 4); general safety precautions (reg. 6); emergency controls (reg. 9); electrical continuity (reg. 10) |
| C | Meters and regulators | Meters, meter housings and regulators (regs 12–17) |
| D | Installation pipework | Safe use of pipes, enclosed pipes, testing and purging (regs 18–24) |
| E | Gas appliances | Safety precautions and checks (reg. 26); flues (reg. 27); room-sealed appliances (reg. 30); use of appliances (reg. 34) |
| F | Maintenance | Employers' and landlords' duties (regs 35–36A) |
| G | Miscellaneous | Escape of gas (reg. 37) |
The checks after working on an appliance
One regulation you'll use on almost every job is 26(9). Whenever you work on a gas appliance, you must immediately afterwards examine:
- the effectiveness of any flue
- the supply of combustion air
- its operating pressure or heat input, or both where necessary
- its operation, to make sure it works safely.
If checking the operating pressure or heat input isn't reasonably practicable, you check its combustion performance instead. This option was added in 2018.
You must then take all reasonably practicable steps to tell the responsible person about any defect, and the owner if that's someone else. Simply disconnecting an appliance, or purging it where that doesn't affect its safety, doesn't trigger these checks.
How the law is explained
HSE publishes L56, Safety in the installation and use of gas systems and appliances. It contains the full text of GSIUR, an Approved Code of Practice and guidance. How much weight each of these carries is covered in 1.3.
Sources: GSIUR 1998 regs 2, 26'work', reg. 26(9) L56 (2018) paras 1–6scope, 2018 changes IGEM/G/11 Ed. 2 3.3.1where GSIUR applies CCN1 Issue 16 §1assessed
Tutor notes
- Give learners a list of tasks (fitting a cooker on a bayonet connector, replacing a boiler fan, moving a fixed gas fire, purging after a meter change) and ask which count as "work" under GSIUR.
- Ask why reg. 26(9) applies after a repair even if the engineer didn't touch the flue.
- CCN1 §1 lists the regulations assessed (regs 2–8, 25, 26, 35 and 36). Use the table above as a map and have learners find each one in their copy of L56.