Gas servicing and safety

Did you know that badly fitted and poorly serviced gas appliances can cause gas leaks, explosions, fires, and carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning?

Carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms can be mistaken for flu, food poisoning, viral infections and tiredness. Every year people are injured or die from faulty gasworks.

If you think you can smell gas, your carbon monoxide alarm has activated, or you have concerns about fumes from a gas appliance please call the National Gas and Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 immediately and do the following:

Turn off your gas supply at the emergency control valve, which is normally near your meter
Open doors and windows to allow fresh air inside
Follow the advice given by the emergency adviser

Do not:

Smoke, light a match or use any other naked flame
Turn electrical switches on or off
Use doorbells, mobile phones or anything else which could cause a spark

Our legal duty to you

It is Southampton City Council’s legal duty to you, as a council tenant, to make sure all council-owned gas appliances and carbon monoxide detectors are checked by our Gas Safe engineer at least once a year. This can be either a gas service or inspection.

You will receive a letter in the post two weeks before the scheduled appointment date, telling you the day and time of this appointment.

Your duty to us

As a tenant, you have a legal duty to allow our engineer into your home so that checks can be carried out.

There are general gas safety checks to follow:

Do

Allow us into your home to carry out an annual gas safety check
Make sure an adult is at home for your appointment
Report any problems with our gas appliances immediately on 023 8083 3006
Make sure we can get to your appliances and gas meter
Test your carbon monoxide detectors weekly

Don't

Block any air vents to gas appliances
Use portable oil, paraffin or bottled gas heaters or cookers
Block gas flues or chimneys taking away fumes from gas appliances
Carry out any DIY work on gas

You could be breaking the law and putting your health and safety and those around you at risk.

Rearrange a Gas Service appointment

Gas service appointments cannot be cancelled as we are obliged by law to follow this process and complete the service for you. We will only be able to rearrange this appointment within five working days of the original appointment date.

If you are no longer available, you need to let us know as soon as possible. You can use our online form, as long as the appointment is not today or tomorrow, and this is your first or second appointment.

If your appointment is today, you will need to contact housing services instead as soon as possible. If you have received a final notice from us, and the date of the appointment is not convenient, you will need to call us directly on 023 8083 4906.

Before you fill in this form

You won't be able to save this form to complete later, so please allow yourself a couple of minutes to fill in the form.

Rearrange a gas service appointment

If you have personally owned gas appliances

We recommend that you have these regularly checked by a Gas Safe engineer and certified accordingly.

All Gas Safe registered engineers carry a Gas Safe ID card. Don’t ever be afraid to ask to see it when they arrive at your property to carry out gas work – and remember to check the front and back of the card. Find out more about the Gas Safe Register.

If you are thinking about installing a gas appliance (excluding cookers) don’t forget you must obtain permission and the appliance must be installed by a Gas Safe engineer. Find out more about asking for permission to alter your home.

Portable heaters

It is a condition of your tenancy that you must not use these types of heaters or cookers in your home. This includes using any bottled, cylinder or Calor gas. There are very good reasons for this:

They can be a fire risk
Carbon monoxide can suffocate people if an appliance is used in a poorly ventilated room, or is faulty and does not burn properly
When in use they are a major cause of condensation. For every litre of fuel burnt a litre of moisture is produced. This moisture then settles on walls, windows, and other cold surfaces