Power Test Plus can offer an inclusive service plan designed to help you comply with the current legislation and to help make your job that little bit easier. When it comes to safety of gas and electrical appliances the regulations are there to help save lives and ensure peace of mind for everybody, whether you are a landlord, tenant or owner-occupier.
As a landlord or homeowner you need to ensure that you are meeting the current legislation:
- The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
- Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994
As a landlord, you have a legal requirement to have an annual safety check on gas appliances. Because you have a duty of care for your tenants, it is down to you to make sure all portable electrical appliances and the fixed wiring is inspected and tested for safety.
Here at Power Test Plus we can:
- Carry out annual safety inspections of gas and electrical appliances
- Carry out an annual gas boiler service to ensure efficiency and safety
- Fit carbon monoxide and smoke detectors or check existing appliances
- Contact arranged directly with the tenant if required
- We will contact the Landlord / Management Company 4 weeks prior to the next annual inspection
All documentation will be handed over to the Landlord / Management Company. Any defects will be notified within three working days and a gas shutdown will be notified immediately.
Why do you need an electrical safety inspection?
By law you are required to ensure your electrical appliances and systems are safe. There is a requirement for Landlords and Letting Agents to take adequate steps to protect the users of their appliances from both electric shock and fire hazard. If you don’t have them inspected, how will you know they are safe? Any defence is likely to fail under "due diligence" if there was a reasonable step that could have been taken but was not.
Electrical fires in the home occur at a rate of 2,200/year in the UK. It could happen to one of your properties. While it is highly likely you are insured, will your insurance cover an un-inspected property? Who will cover your insurance excess? Who will cover the lost rent while the property is being returned to a habitable condition? Will it be investigated? Almost certainly, and could you show that the electrical installation and appliances were safe? How would you deal with injuries, or worse, to your tenants?
Having an inspection would reduce the risk and help ensure any possible problems were likely to be minimised, whether from injury, damage to property, or exposure to prosecution.
Why do you need a gas safety inspection?
As a Landlord or Letting Agent it is a legal requirement. It is a criminal offence not to have your properties checked annually for gas safety.
Apart from the legal requirement, consider that every year in the UK around 30 people die from faulty gas appliances. Only a small percentage of these die from explosions, the vast majority die from the invisible killer, carbon monoxide. You can't see it, you can't smell it, but only a very small amount is needed to cause death.
