Gas Safety Checks

Northwards Gas Safety

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Northwards strive to ensure that all our gas appliances within our housing stock are safe, energy efficient and well maintained.

In order to meet its legal safety requirements all Northwards Housing installed gas appliances are serviced annually at no additional cost to the resident.

Residents own appliances are checked to ensure that they are safe to use but tenants are responsible for the servicing of their own appliances. We offer this service on a paid basis and can do both at the same time to avoid inconvenience.

If you own your own gas cooker we can service it for you at the cost of £64.95 (including VAT).

If you are interested in taking up this please would you contact our Customer Service Centre on 0300 123 123.

We also do work for leaseholders

Why are these works important?
  • A regular service will address all of the above and keep gas appliances in your home working efficiently and economically.
  • Every year in the UK some 30 people are killed and many others are affected by carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty gas installations such as fires and boilers in their homes.
  • Carbon monoxide is a particularly dangerous gas because you cannot smell it. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, tiredness and nausea (feeling sick). Some of these symptoms can be mistaken for flu and other common viruses, or even food poisoning.

Please don’t put yourself, your family and neighbours at risk. Ensure you allow us access to your home to help keep you safe and warm and even save you money!

What work is involved?

The gas service, usually taking no more than an hour, will be carried out by our contractor, Manchester Working Limited, and will give you the peace of mind that your appliances are safe and working well. You will also be provided with a written or printed Gas Safety certificate by the gas engineer before he leaves your home.

Our contractor, Manchester Working Limited, will send a pre-service letter to tenants advising that your service is due. Always ask for identification before you let any engineer into your home to avoid bogus callers

If a service engineer calls at your home and you are not there they will leave a contact card. Please contact Manchester Working Limited straightaway on 0161 277 6446 to make an appointment at a convenient time.

You can also contact our Customer Centre on 03000 123 123 or the Northwards Gas Servicing Hotline on 0161 203 2975. We will continue to try to contact you in order to gain access to your home.

Wednesday early evening and Saturday morning appointments

Did you know that we can carry out your gas servicing between 8am to 5pm each weekday?

We also offer early evening appointments each Wednesday and morning appointments on Saturdays.

The appointment service has been put in place following feedback from our customers who work and may struggle to make appointments during normal working hours.

Please speak with a member of our Customer Service centre on 03000 123 123 if you have need to book an appointment.

What happens if you do not arrange for this work to be carried out?

Most residents take gas safety very seriously and allow access quickly. To show our appreciation to residents who have their Gas Safety check completed at the first appointment, we now automatically enter their details into a quarterly prize draw. This winner receives £50 worth of high street shopping vouchers.

As mentioned above, the annual gas safety check is a legal requirement and we may be left with no option but to force entry into your home. This is a costly process and we will recover our costs. This ensures the safety of the resident and also any neighbouring properties.

We will also charge the resident for the cost we have incurred in taking this necessary action.

Service Interval Timers – repeat hard to access properties

We install a service interval timer next to the central heating boiler in these type of properties, which provides the resident with a flashing warning indicator when the central heating boiler is coming close to it’s service due date.

The device will also make a bleeping noise which will get louder the longer it is left unattended. The gas servicing engineer will re-set the device once he has completed the service, ready for it to activate again the following year.

Gas Safety for Leaseholders

Safety and Security for Leaseholders: Gas Safety

As a leaseholder, you are responsible for the maintenance of all gas appliances and flues in your property if you do not share a boiler with a neighbouring property.

You are required to have them checked for safety at least once every 12 months. From 1st April 2009 there was a significant change to Gas Safety law which means that all gas appliances have to be maintained, installed and serviced by a GAS SAFE engineer. This replaces the CORGI gas registration.

Northwards Housing does carry out servicing to leaseholder properties who share a communal boiler but we do recover the cost in the service charge paid by leaseholders in type of situation.

Further information can be found at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website.

As this is an important health and safety issue we have agreed a competitive price with our Repairs contractor specifically for leaseholders for this service of £76.80 (including VAT).  This is cheaper than the current British Gas charge of £79.32 (including VAT).

If you are interested taking this up, please contact our Customer Service Centre on 0300 123 123 for more details.

If you sublet your property, as a landlord, you actually have a legal responsibility to your tenant under the Gas Safety (Installations and Use) Regulations 1998. You must ensure that an annual safety check is carried out on each appliance and/or flue that you provide for tenants use, and that a record of each safety check is kept for 2 years

In emergency

If you smell gas, call the National Grid Gas Emergency Helpline immediately on 0800 111 999.

  • Do not turn electric switches on/off or do anything else that could create an electric spark
  • Do not smoke
  • Do not use naked flames and extinguish any that are present
  • Turn off your gas supply at the meter
  • Open your doors and windows
  • Keep people away from the area

If you would like more information please contact our Customer Service Centre on 03000 123 123.

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