Gas check query

[fido]

My sister had a mechanic come to check her gas boiler and installation. As she was at work I was at her home at the time. It was the annual gas check that landlords have to arrange for their tenants. The mechanic discovered that his carbon monoxide detector wasn't working. He did, however do all the other checks he could do, and promised a new appointment would be made for a proper CO check. No further call was made, the company just sent her a certificate saying that it was not necessary to do a CO check as all the other checks had been done and there was no CO leaks. Is this correct or should she insist that her landlords arranges for a proper CO check to be made?

[fictitiousemail]

Do rented properties need a CO Alarm to be fitted or is it only in HMO's Might be worth your sisters while buying one of her own for peace of mind.

[fred]

It's possible he meant that his combustion gas analyser wasn't working, it measures the CO content of the flue gasses to check that combustion is correct. Incorrect combustion can wreck a boiler so I wouldn't pay someone for a boiler check unless he had a working one and used it.

[fido]

Thanks for that information, it was the flue he was trying to check. She doesn't have to pay for the check, that's the landlord's responsibility, so her correct course of action would therefore be to contact her landlord. Again... thanks.

[YAPH]

It's OK: a combustion analyser test isn't mandatory for a Landlord's Gas Safety Report. If an engineer doing a LLGS has an analyser they may use it to determine whether the boiler (or some other appliances) need servicing, but it's not required for the Gas Safety report itself.

[mogga]

Did he issue her with a gas safety certificate? (A pass and not a fail)

Tenants have to have one by law. If the landlord refuses then health and safety are gagging to get involved. There've been a couple of deaths from gas appliances recently so they will be keen to prevent more.

[Ed Sirett]

While it is a useful tool, it is not required, nor legally required in order to perform checks on domestic gas appliances.

[fred]

Thanks for the correction, I thought that was probably the case as systems have been set up and safety checked for years without the need for them but decided to avoid confusing the issue.

Still, it's nice to have a guy with all the toys (working) on site to predict long term problems in the making on an installation.

[mogga]

Did she get a gas safety certificate issued?

[Ed Sirett]

I doubt that using a combustion analyser is that predictive. It has two main uses one is to get/check the combustion right on forced premix burners. The other is to see how well a boiler is burning, if it checks out >99.6% over the range of gas rates then you can be sure the pressure ans rates are good. Not having this makes toy means you have to perform other checks which take a lot longer and/or it is difficult to keep the boiler in the right condition while the checks are done.

[fido]