This week (8 to 14 September) is Gas Safety Week, and we’re reminding Southwark residents and businesses of the importance of gas safety.
The council's Health and Safety team proactively contact businesses in the borough to ensure they are being gas safe, and regulate businesses operating within Southwark to complete and send in their Gas Safety Certificate each year.
The team has so far contacted over 1,500 businesses in Southwark, and issued hundreds of legal notices of either improvement or prohibition upon non-compliant business operators. These notices force businesses to improve their Gas Safety standards and help to keep everyone safe.
You can contact the team here: ohs@southwark.gov.uk
Businesses can be gas safe by:
- Booking an annual gas safety check and sending completed gas safety certificates to the council
- Regularly engaging the services of a commercially qualified gas safe engineer to deep clean commercial ventilation and ductwork systems
Residents can be gas safe by:
- Arranging an annual gas safety check. If you are a homeowner, gas appliances like boilers, ovens and hobs should be safety checked once a year and serviced regularly by a domestically qualified Gas Safe registered engineer.
- Landlords have a legal requirement to organise these checks for their tenants, including landlords of privately rented homes. If you live in a council property, we will check your gas appliances and flues once a year.
- Looking out for warning signs that show gas appliances are not working correctly. Signs may include lazy yellow or orange flames instead of crisp blue ones, black soot marks on or around the appliance, a pilot light that keeps going out, too much condensation in the room, or error messages on the appliance’s control panel.
- Knowing what to do if you suspect a gas leak
- Purchasing and regularly testing an audible carbon monoxide (CO) alarm, and knowing the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning
If you are a tenant of a privately rented property and are concerned about the gas appliances your landlord has provided, you can contact us here for help.
The theme of this year’s Gas Safety Week is ‘Looking after yourself, friends and family’ - emphasising that everyone has a part to play in keeping each other safe.