Gas

Contents
1. Gas legislation 2. Further information

The current legislation controlling the installation and use of gas is the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (or Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997) which came into force on 31 October 1998 (12 May 1997 in Northern Ireland) and places duties mainly on installers, landlords and some gas suppliers.

These Regulations aim to prevent injury to consumers and the public from either carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning or fire and explosion.

In particular, the Regulations require gas installation businesses to:

• Register with Gas Safe Register
• Monitor the competency of those businesses and their operatives to undertake gas work safely and to investigate complaints against registered installers
• Demonstrate they are competent to undertake gas work safely normally by being assessed against nationally accepted standards

Landlords have duties to ensure that the gas appliances and flues they provide for tenants' use are maintained in a safe condition at all times and checked for safety each year by an engineer registered with Gas Safe Register. A copy of the check record must also be provided to the tenant.

For more information on landlord’s obligations, see our ‘Obligations of a landlord’ section.

Unlike landlords, there is no duty on owner/occupiers of private domestic property to have their gas appliances either maintained or regularly checked for safety.

The information above is only intended to be a short guide to gas safety regulations. Since this is a complicated area, if you are working with gas, are a landlord, etc. you should seek advice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE or HSENI). The link to their extensive section on gas safety is listed below.

Gas safety from the HSE

Gas safety from HSENI