On 1^st November, Gas Safe Register brought in new requirements for dealing with non-standard installations and changes to the inspection process, in the form of a Technical Bulletin.

When a gas engineer is confronted with installation challenges, perhaps where a customer’s wishes the location of a new appliance to deviate from manufacturers instructions, the main focus must clearly be safety. The authors of normative standards and regulatory guidance documents appreciate that, on such an occasion, published guidance won’t fit the scenario an engineer faces. The Technical Bulletin issued by Gas Safe Register helps clarify the situation.

There are other situations when deviation from standard guidance may be an issue. Technologies emerge ahead of guidance being published and there are situations when alternative installation methods may be as robust as those laid out in the standard requirements.

It’s clear that there needs to be some flexibility in such cases and the applied principle is that deviations are not prohibited, but any changes to standard procedures must be equal to or provide a higher level of safety than the normative guidelines.

To ensure compliance with its rules for registration and the standards published by Building Regulations, British Standards, UKLPG and IGEM, a summary of Gas Safe Register’s new set of requirements is as follows:

• At inspection, where new installations are found to have deviated from the manufacturer’s instructions, the gas engineer or registered business responsible for the installation will need to show evidence that the deviation has been agreed with the relevant organisation or manufacturer.
• Evidence should take the form of a written description of the deviation, by the gas engineer, and written confirmation from the manufacturer of its acceptance of the deviation.
• Where evidence is not provided Gas Safe Register will issue a defect notice requiring the installation to comply with manufacturers instructions.
• Customers must confirm that the defect(s) have been corrected before a defect notice against a gas safe registered business can be removed. Failure to respond to the defect notice may result in sanctions being applied to the gas engineer or registered business.

For more information please visit Gas Safe Register’s website by clicking here