A Prescot-based heating firm is encouraging homeowners across Merseyside to give their gas appliances an annual safety check this week in support of a national awareness campaign.
HomeServe Merseyside is backing the sixth annual Gas Safety Week (19-25 September 2016) by urging local residents to ensure a Gas Safe registered engineer has inspected their boilers and other gas-powered appliances.
This year’s awareness campaign is also encouraging the public to reach out to vulnerable or elderly community members, sick friends and family to help keep them safe from poorly maintained gas appliances that could pose a potential risk.
Peter Fraser, Managing Director of HomeServe Merseyside said: “We’re proud to be supporting Gas Safety Week this year and want to do our bit to raise awareness of gas safety issues for the residents of Merseyside. There are some simple steps that homeowners can take to ensure they’re staying gas safe at home but we’d always encourage people to have their gas appliances checked once a year by an engineer that is registered with the official gas authority, stomach Gas Safe Register.”
By law, only Gas Safe registered engineers like those at HomeServe Merseyside can work on gas appliances. According to Gas Safe Register, every year an estimated quarter of a million illegal gas jobs are carried out by unregistered workers that do not have the skills or the qualifications to do the job safely.
Jonathan Samuel, managing director for Gas Safe Register, said: “We know from our own investigations that around one in six gas appliances in the UK are unsafe1, meaning far too many people are victims of preventable gas related incidents.”
“It’s great to have the support of HomeServe Merseyside this Gas Safety Week. By working together, we can raise further awareness of gas safety, to help reduce the number of dangerous gas appliances that could be lurking in people’s homes.”