Landlord Gas Safety Certificates / Landlord Electrical Safety Certificates /
St Albans - Herts Boilers

By law, if you are a landlord you have to have the gas safety of your rented property checked by a competent gas engineer on an annual basis.

As from 1 July 2020, landlords need their property's electrical installation safety checked once every five years.

We do the both!

We offer a Landlord Gas Safety Certificate service (LGSC, or LGSR or called CP12), and landlord electrical safety certificate service (Electrical Installation Condition Report - EICR) to St Albans, Hatfield, Harpenden, Radlett, Hemel Hempstead, Watford, Welwyn Garden City and Hertfordshire. The price is fixed at £70 + VAT for gas, and £180 + VAT for electrical.

We are probably the only firm in St Albans which offers both gas and electrical inspection.

We check all the gas appliances against relative HSE / Gas Safe guidances, British Standards and the manufacturer's instructions. For each gas appliance, we check the following:

1. The effectiveness of any flue;
2. The supply of combustion air;
3. Its operating pressure or heat input or flue gas readings, where necessary, all;
4. Its operating so as to ensure its safe functioning.

We also check gas safety of the carcass (meter and pipes). This check is a suggestion, but not a compulsory requirement by HSE.

We check the gas safety up to standards - we don't overkill and don't overlook, if there is an unsafe situation!

We check a domestic property with its own gas meter plus a boiler, a cooker and a fire. We don't have a warm air heater qualification so we can't carry out a gas safety inspection on a property with an warm air unit. We do nature gas not LPG.

Banned Locations for Gas Appliances:

1. Open flued appliances (gas fires) in bathrooms or shower rooms
2. Flueless appliances (cookers) in bathrooms or shower rooms
3. Open flued appliances above 14kW gross input in bedrooms or rooms meant as sleeping accommodation
4. Open flued appliances below 14kW gross input in bedrooms or rooms meant as sleeping accommodation, if the appliance is not fitted with an atmospheric sensing device.

Charges:

The fee is £70 + VAT for a gas inspection of up to three gas appliances, typically comprising a boiler, a cooker and a fire. Each additional appliance is an extra £20. If we need to travel between your rented property and a letting agent for key access, we will charge you £30 extra.

We charge £50 + VAT to supply and fit a new carben monoxide alarm at a landlord gas safety check if there isn't any.

We charge £120 + VAT for a combined landlord gas check and boiler service.

Certificate Timing

1. As a landlord you can arrange an annual gas safety check within two months before its expiry date, and you have got and will still get a full 12 month length similar to a MOT style timing. For example, if your current certificate expires on 01/06/2020, and if a new check is done on 15/04/2020, the next year expiry date will be 01/06/2021, not 15/04/2021.
2. By law after a gas safety check (with a pass outcome) the certificate should be given to all tenants within 28 days of the check. Some letting agents might be keen on getting these certificates sooner for their systems either from the gas engineers or from the landlords. We appreciate this approach of work quality but by law it is required and is still legal within 28 days.
3. Apart from this 28 days term mentioned above, there is no specific time requirement for a gas engineer to give a completed certificate to a landlord or an agent. We will completed all certificates in days, nowadays they are in a digital format by email.
4. As a landlord, you should keep a certificate for min two years.

Tightness test (gas leak test)

On landlord annual gas safety checks, the current regulations don’t make it mandatory for us to do a tightness test, eg, gas leak test on gas pipe and gas appliances (boilers, cookers and fires). But as a company policy, we do this test if we can, so by default, being a landlord you are deemed to accept our stance if you employ us.

This is to say that occasionally if we do find a unacceptable gas leak, you are liable for repair costs and inconveniences.

Fire alarm and CO alarm test

All versons of landlord gas certificate forms have spaces to tick for house fire alarms and CO alarm tests. These two are required by building regulations not by gas regulations.

As a gas engineer doing an annual gas safety check, we, and all our fellow gas engineers too, only do power supply tests on alarms, eg, to press test buttons at alarms to see if their batteries and power supplies are working. We can’t do real fire alarm tests and CO poison gas tests.

Relationship with landlords

As a reputable local boiler repairing firm, we hope to maintain a positive and long-term relationship with local landlords. We not only do general gas work, we are particularly specialised in boiler repairs. So, let us do your gas safety checks, and we will carry out a safety check on your boiler and keep your boiler details on file. If you are ever in need, we are in a better position to sort out your boiler problems in future.

As a landlord if the boiler in your rented property breaks down, you will be under pressure to get it fixed or replaced. We have no problem with old boilers, and as long as they are safe and functioning, we will do our best to get them up and running again.

Legislation For Landlords 2022

- How to comply with the smoke and CO regulations from 01/10/2022

Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022: guidance for landlords and tenants - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

From 1st October 2022, it has been a legal requirement that all rented properties have smoke alarms (fire alarms), and carbon monoxide alarms fitted.

• Ensure at least one smoke alarm is equipped on each storey of their homes where there is a room used as living accommodation. This has been a legal requirement in the private rented sector since 2015.
• Ensure a carbon monoxide alarm is equipped in any room used as living accommodation which contains a fixed combustion appliance (excluding gas cookers)

CO alarm rules – Explanation from Gas Safe Register

New Legislation for Landlords since 01/07/2020

- How to comply with new electrical safety regulations

The ESS regulations, in its current form, affect private rentals in England only. The new rules apply to new tenancies, (including renewal but not periodic) from 1st July 2020 and to all existing tenancies from 1st April 2021.

Goverment website: Guide for landlords: electrical safety standards in the private rented sector (Updated 19 June 2020)

Official regulation document: The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020

The regulation requires a private landlord to ensure that the electrical safety standards are met during any period when the residential premises are occupied under a tenancy, and that every fixed electrical installation is inspected and tested at least every five years by a qualified person.

A new inspection is not required for each tenancy agreement, so long as they are still valid and no more than five years old.

Herts Boilers offers Electrical Installation Condition Report at £150 +VAT.

Legislation For Landlords 2015

- How to comply with the smoke and CO regulations

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1693/regulation/4/made

From 1st October 2015, it has been a legal requirement that all rented properties have smoke alarms (fire alarms), and, if necessary, carbon monoxide alarms fitted.

• A smoke alarm is equipped on each storey of the premises on which there is a room used wholly or partly as living accommodation.
• A carbon monoxide alarm is equipped in any room of the premises which is used wholly or partly as living accommodation and contains a solid fuel burning combustion appliance.

We offer a fire and CO alarm installation service for local landlords.

For more details on landlord electrical safety inspection, please visit Landlord Electrical Safety Certificates.