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An extension to gas safety certificates may be the only way to deal with this crisis. But Vicki Cutler argues that landlords must get to the high-risk cases as quick as they can
We can see why there’s a campaign to allow gas safety certificates to run for 18 months instead of a year.
Of course it may well be dangerous for engineers to enter a home where the resident could have coronavirus.
By the same token, residents will be fearful of letting someone who might be infected into their property. We get that.
All of us are hearing the social isolation message loud and clear. Maybe allowing a few more months to check gas safety is a sensible work-around? And most of the time it will be. But sometimes it won’t be.
MOTs for cars and vans will now run for 18 months, so why don’t we apply the same rules to gas certificates? This certainly sounds like an appealing argument, until you lift the bonnet to look at what the government is actually saying.
Yes, you can motor around on a MOT that’s more than a year old – on one condition: the vehicle must be roadworthy, no ifs or buts. The government is washing its hands of the risk and passing it over in its entirety to the driver.
If the government agrees to gas certificates lasting longer, it’s a nailed-on certainty that they’ll still place the onus for safety on you. And if anything does go wrong, you can rely on your insurers to be as inflexible as possible.
The lockdown does spell danger. As the National Fire Chiefs Council warns us, more people will be at home doing more cooking and that usually leads to more fires. So, this isn’t the time to drop our guard.
“An extension to gas safety certificates may be the only way to deal with this crisis. But get to the high-risk cases as quick as you can”
But in the real world we know it’ll be hard to get engineers into homes. What’s the answer to this dilemma?
We’ve investigated some cases in recent years in which gas explosions and electrical fires have led to deaths. At the core of these were tenants with serious mental health issues that landlords were well aware of. Cases like this should be at the front of the queue for safety checks. Of course large blocks with gas, and especially those with timber frames or flammable cladding, should also get priority.
An extension to gas safety certificates may be the only way to deal with this crisis. But get to the high-risk cases as quick as you can. It almost goes without saying that the engineer will need the very best safety equipment possible if, on balance, someone has to go in.
We dread to think what an emergency response to an explosion would be like at the peak of COVID-19.
Vicki Cutler, independent health, safety and compliance consultant; and associate, HQN
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