Agent turned off gas - were any regs broken ?

[SimonH2]

I'm "a bit annoyed" with my letting agent as they have turned off the gas (briefly) to identify the right meter - and they've done it twice (once when taking the inventory last week, and again this week when they moved a tenant in). On both occasions they left the boiler with it's pilot out and so not doing anything. First time they'd also turned on the immersion heater (to identify the lecky meter) and left it on, the second time they left the tenant without heating/hot water.

It turns out, they have a standard 'trick' of lighting a ring on the hob, then turning the main gas valve off for a few seconds, and seeing that the hob went out. I've pointed out that this leaves them in a tricky position if they pick the wrong meter - as they'll have turned off someone else's supply and unless that person is in, then they can't safely turn it back on.

Is this considered acceptable ?
Or just bad practice ?
Or have any regs been broken ?

 

[big-all]

very bad practice really i wonder how many hundreds off pounds they have cost innocent owners in call out charges to failed boilers

pretty sure its got to be illegal interfering with someone elses supply

 

[ianmcd]

as they are not gas safe registered I cant think of any regs that they have broken, its certainly bad practice, i do a lot of work for letting agents and have never done this ,dont see the need there are more professional and safer ways of identifying if you have the correct meter for the property

 

[SimonH2]

I was sort of thinking about if there are any rules about turning on a gas supply if you aren't able to go in and check that everything is in a safe state ? It's OK(ish) if they get the right one first time and they then check everything is OK (which they obviously didn't).

But supposing they turned off my neighbour upstairs ? OK, his boiler should shut down to a safe state, but if he has the original hob (I only changed mine a couple of years ago when it developed a leak) then it won't have flame failure detection and potentially you could leave someone with an unlit burner spewing gas out. Yeah, I know it needs a combination of things - but "sh*t happens"

 

[Inky Pete]

You could always label the meters for your own property, or have them record the serial numbers, so there's no confusion in future.

 

[ianmcd]

Hi simon yes you are completely right but unfortunately the regs only cover qualified and registered engineers yes the possible outcome would be the same but I cant think of any specific reg that would prevent a letting agent from turning off and then on a gas meter, they could be prosecuted like anyone else if they cause a dangerous situation and something goes belly up

 

[dhutch]

Sounds like a rough-arsed way of doing it, as they are working for you, I would politely point out that if they try said trick again you may go elsewhere!

 

[SimonH2]

Yeah, I've actually just changed agents as I "wasn't happy" with the level of service from the previous ones. Now I'm wondering if my expectations are too high
I think the meters are labelled - though possibly not as well as they could be. I did explicitly tell the guy which ones they were when I had the first meeting with him for him to get property details.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Would have been easier to use the technique of turning the boiler on and seeing which meter started moving surely?

Rough - but not illegal.

 

[SimonH2]

Indeed - or just turn on all the burners on the hob which is more predictable. In the case of this flat, there's a thermal store and I doubt anyone at the agency would have the gumption to read the detailed maintenance/operating document I've provided them with and work out how to make the boiler run (turn up the cylinder stat). If they did, I'd have been even more annoyed if they'd left it turned up and upset the whole balance of the system.

I have a number of things to raise with them and this will be one - it will be a very blunt and uncompromising statement I make.
Another will be to ask which bit of not to be given to the tenant they don't understand in the instruction: There is an additional set (red tag labelled "Office/Maintenance keys") which is not to be given to the tenant - ... has an additional key for ....
So guess which set of keys they've given the tenant
But that's digressing, I was looking to find out whether what they did was just "not very clever", or something I could point out "did you know that you've broken <something> regs ?"

 

[Agile]

If there are more than one gas supply then each meter should according to the regs be marked with the property that it serves.

Best if you mark it yourself very clearly!

Tony

 

[Agile]

The meter changers will not turn a supply back on unless they can enter the property.

I had one who refused to enter the property and check anything. He wanted the owner to call me out to check it ( which I did ).

 

[FiremanT]

he meter changers will not turn a supply back on unless they can enter the property.

I had one who refused to enter the property and check anything. He wanted the owner to call me out to check it ( which I did ).


Go on then, tell us about it

 

[Agile]

I just did!

The Owner even got him to speak to me to say that he could not enter the flat to check anything. No proper explanation of why though.

More amusing is the background to the meter change.

The Owner had called me out to a not working boiler. It was not working because someone had stolen the outside meter!

It took the shipper about a week to replace the meter for some reason.

Tony