Gas work notification

[Andy Dignall]

I've been out of the game for a couple of years after having surgery on my knees and am thinking of going back on the tools.

Is there still a legal requirement to register an installed appliance with corgi/gas safe for local building control and if so how many people actually use it. After speaking to fitters in my local area they seem to shun it of late since Capita gave the details of the installed appliance details to the inland revenue and most received fines for tax evasion

 

[oldsalty]

Sorry CES, can't be specific about who or what because I'm considering private prosecution and giving details of what he did/didn't do, who I am, where I am etc will give him a heads up and I want to see his face when I hand him whatever bit of paper I have to give him to get him into court.

 

[Puddle]

If he has broken a law,contact HSE to investigate and prosecute if deeded fit or take civil action,that is the route to take
Gas safe is not responsible for that side of things,may as well blame them for you missing your train or bad weather conditions.
If I find a id situation,I ,as a gsr,do not ring gas safe,I contact or fill in paperwork to the HSE

There you got,fill ya boots

HSE: How to contact the Health and Safety Executive

Once your claims have been confirmed by a recognised ,independent body,gas safe can remove operative from the register

 

[oldsalty]

Thanks for that puddle. But can anybody tell me, truthfully, that Gas Safe Register (as a supervisory body appointed by the HSE) should NOT be responsible for the proper protection of consumers from the antics of the people who pay over money to buy legitimisation to operate as a Gas Safe Engineer in an environment where householders have absolutely no other option? Call me a cynic but the ONLY reason Gas Safe don't want to know is that it will remove some income from their coffers the next time his membership fee is due.

 

[Mike Jackson]

you got plenty cash then mike,are you not paying enough to all the other parasites already.

I'm already a member of the CIPHE. Gas Safe registration is not that expensive although the cost of training and re assessment is quite high you need to factor that into your pricing structure. It's too easy to call yourself a plumber in this country, as can be seen by some of the threads that pop up on here. With a statutory registration scheme we might stand some chance of the public realising that they need a properly trained plumber and not joe bloggs with a couple of spanners doing it for beer money.

 

[cr0ft]

I'm all for regulation. The biggest risks as I see it that are preventing plumbers from earning a decent self-employed wage at the moment are: -

1.) Semi-retired plumbers working for far less than the hourly rate that would be necessary to support a business and a plumber. The amount of people who I've heard who say something like 'well I use my van for something else anyway so I don't need to cover the running costs of that'. Mostly good plumbers but with no business acumen!

2.) People who call themselves plumbers but who clearly don't know how to do their job properly, thus jeopardising the reputation of our industry.

Regulation, and more importantly enforcement of (think Part P for how this shouldn't be done) is the key to weeding out the 2 people above. Yes, it raises the hourly rate we have to charge but if it weeds out the cowboys and part-time plumbers then it's no bad thing in my opinion.

Apologies if this causes offence to anyone but it's just my opinion.

 

[oldsalty]

Thanks for that cr0ft.

As a householder who has been/is being failed by the regulatory system I would add:

Stop fining householders GBP5000.00p (or holding the threat of such over their heads) if they choose to do the job WTHOUT employing a Gas Safe Registered Person/Part P (the system is the same for both trades) BECAUSE the system of control and regulation of and reliability of the people registered with the scheme has been proven to be fundamentally flawed and is ineffective.

And please don't apologise in case you offend somebody. If somebody gets offended by statements of truth regarding the system of regulation and control then perhaps they just might get offended enough to do something about it. I'm all for constructive offending of people!

 

[Gray0689]

That's ok we will stop regulating everything then
Let's look at what bad regulation does
Banks bad regulation world recession
Doctors bad regulation Harold shipmon

Just 2 off top of my head but I'm sure we all know of the effects that bad or no regulation have on things
So if we scrap regulation on gas safe and anyone can do the work in own home what happens when that person sells there own home to someone else and there is a problem who do they go to ???
You obviously have had a problem with some kind of work you have had done if you don't tell us what it is we can only comment on your posts
You are disgruntled with something was it a cheap job you had done that went wrong

 

[oldsalty]

Thanks for that Gray 0689, you say:


'So if we scrap regulation on gas safe and anyone can do the work in own home what happens when that person sells there own home to someone else and there is a problem who do they go to ???'

So I'm a householder who has had a job done by one of your properly registered and legitamised Gas Safe Registered Combi Boiler Installers, paying GBP1850.00p (not including cost of boiler) for the installation (plus 1 new rad) in a 3 bed, 2 storey semi built in 1962 and I can't get the job signed off because it has not been done properly. Of course we don't discover this until many months later when the Gas Safe Certificate hasn't arrived!

Where should I (and I've done everything properly within the law) go; forget about those DIYers who get it wrong, they get what they pay for; tell we householders who do it properly AND STILL GET SCREWED, where we should go?

The organisation you pay your membership fees to uses those fees to protect the bad guys.

Again, please tell me where we should go?

I note from your Avatar that you are a 'UK Plumbersforums Trusted Advisor' - PLEASE TRUSTFULLY ADVISE ME.

 

[Gray0689]

What is wrong with it ?
If it is a dangerous installation you can get hse involved and they can prosecute the installer
If it has coused damage to your property you can get your installers insurance company out to try and put a claim in

 

[oldsalty]

Again, thanks for your interest and yes, I am/will be in the process of doing all that but why does the Gas Safe Register not have any responsibility? Why have they not said to me 'send your evidence and we'll suspend the guy pending full investigation' but all they will say is 'we have no legal authority' to quote Helen Haigh in an email she sent me 'we have not been given any authority' . If a gas safe engineer fails or breaks the law he should immediately be removed from the gas safe register (pending full investigation) and that should be the responsibility of your registration body, and NOT the householder!

 

[Gray0689]

Then all I can say is if gas safe won't look in to it they don't think it's a safety issue just a disgruntled householder I'm not saying you didn't have a problem but ad you won't post the problem we can't comment on it

 

[Mike Jackson]

Gas Safe run the register on behalf of the HSE and have no authority to prosecute, only the HSE can do this.

Also look at things from the point of the gas engineer. If an engineer was suspended when a complaint was made against them it would cause major hardship and loss of earnings. Great, you may say, but what if the complaint is a malicious one? I was the subject of a malicious complaint a few years back and the investigation found that I was completely in the right, why should I lose my income because of a malicious neighbour where I was working?

The system isn't perfect but it's a damn site better than it was before regulation.

 

[Gray0689]

Gas Safe run the register on behalf of the HSE and have no authority to prosecute, only the HSE can do this.

Also look at things from the point of the gas engineer. If an engineer was suspended when a complaint was made against them it would cause major hardship and loss of earnings. Great, you may say, but what if the complaint is a malicious one? I was the subject of a malicious complaint a few years back and the investigation found that I was completely in the right, why should I lose my income because of a malicious neighbour where I was working?

The system isn't perfect but it's a damn site better than it was before regulation.

Well said

 

[Puddle]

Of course we don't discover this until many months later when the Gas Safe Certificate hasn't arrived!

What 'Gas Safe Certificate'' ?,did not know there was one

Are you sure you are not confusing a gas safely issue with the registration/Notification of the boiler under the energy efficiency regs

 

[johnnyplumb]

I'm already a member of the CIPHE. Gas Safe registration is not that expensive although the cost of training and re assessment is quite high you need to factor that into your pricing structure. It's too easy to call yourself a plumber in this country, as can be seen by some of the threads that pop up on here. With a statutory registration scheme we might stand some chance of the public realising that they need a properly trained plumber and not joe bloggs with a couple of spanners doing it for beer money.

i agree it's to easy to call yourself a plumber but you'll never stop this happening, statutory registration will only add to our already high costs when mr illegal does'nt have this problem. it could be argued that it would make things worse rather than better, especially just now when times are hard for most households.