Mansfield Council highlights gas safety ahead of winter

Council gas engineers attended more than 15,000 visits to tenants’ homes in 2022-23 and the council achieved 100 per cent compliance on its annual gas safety checks in its own council homes.

As a landlord, it has a legal responsibility to ensure all fixed gas appliances in its homes are checked every year for safety.

The process to comply with landlord regulations within the statutory timeframe started last year and involved sending out more than 9,000 letters to its tenants.

Coun Anne Callaghan (Lab), portfolio holder for housing, said: “It is very important for everyone’s safety that people who have a gas appliance in their home, get them checked regularly to ensure they are working properly.

"The potential consequences for not doing so could be catastrophic.

“As a landlord, the council is mandated to carry out these checks and the main issue we have faced is gaining entry to every single home to complete the checks.

"We have occasionally had to take legal action to achieve this but that is always a last resort.

“To make things easier for tenants, we introduced an appointments system in which checks could be booked before and after normal working hours and this has worked well in helping us to achieve 100 per cent compliance.”

Top gas safety tips:

• Know the symptoms of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning: Headaches, nausea, breathlessness, dizziness, collapse and loss of consciousness.
• Look out for warning signs your appliance may be unsafe, such as a lazy yellow flame instead of a crisp blue flame, error messages or unexpected noises from your boiler or dark and sooty stains around your gas appliance.
• Make sure you leave vents unblocked as these are there to help your appliance work safely and efficiently.
• Never attempt to work on a gas appliance yourself – always seek the help of a qualified Gas Safe registered engineer.
• Always ask to see your engineer’s Gas Safe ID card – the back of the card states which gas appliances they are qualified to work on.
• If you smell gas or think there might be a gas leak, call the free 24-hour national gas emergency number immediately on 0800 111999.