Every year over 1 million gas installations, repairs and servicing are carried out by illegal gas engineers who are unqualified and are not on the Gas Safe Register, the official gas registration body for the United Kingdom. Illegal gas fitters put homeowners and their families at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning and gas leaks which can lead to fatal explosions.
In the age of the internet, you have many local Gas Engineers at your fingertips unfortunately it’s incredibly easy to fake experience, skills, qualifications and certification online allowing cowboy gas engineers to operate freely. Many homeowners are focused on one thing when they’re looking for an engineer to carry out a gas installation, service or repair, and that’s price, Illegal Gas Engineers don’t have to pay for courses and certification and they rarely do the job properly anyway allowing them to offer their unethical services cheaper than legitimate fully certified engineers.
A lot of homeowners and landlords don’t even bother checking an Engineers credentials. When you’re using a Gas Engineer for the first time, you should always use a Gas Safe Registered Engineer Anyone carrying out Gas Work needs to be Gas Safe Registered by law and need to carry a Gas Safe ID card which you should always check.
When the engineer arrives ask to check his/her Gas Safe ID Card, don’t feel awkward for asking this question a real engineer will expect it a lot of engineers will have their cards held up for you to see as soon as you open the door. No gas ID card? Don’t let them into your home.
Here’s what’s you should check on a Gas Safe ID Card
- First look at the photo, does the engineer match the face in the photo?
- Next check the expiry date, is the ID card in date?
- The card will name the company the engineer’s from, does this company match?
- There should be a seven digit license number
- There should be a hologram
Not all gas safe registered engineers are qualified to work on all gas appliances flip the card over. The back of the card will tell you if the engineers qualified to do the job you have hired them to do. There should be one of 2 categories domestic and non-domestic (commercial).
A typical domestic gas engineer will have pipework, water heater, fire, cooker and gas boiler listed so if you have booked an engineer for a boiler service and they have pipework and gas boiler listed they should be fine (please note that pipework is a standard requirement of all Gas Safe Registered Engineers)
Still unsure? you can instantly check an engineer by entering their 7-digit license number here
Following these steps will ensure you don’t fall foul of an illegal engineer
By the way, all TM Hughes Engineers are Gas Safe Registered, so you rest easy if you use us for any of your domestic or commercial Gas work.
