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What Is A Gas Safety Certificate?

Do you wish to know what a Gas Safety Certificate is and if you need to get one?

If you’re in the UK and you own a rental property, you have a statutory obligation to obtain a Gas Safety Certificate. The law ( Gas Safety - Installation and Use, Regulations 1998) stipulates that landlords as a matter of necessity should have all their gas appliances, fittings,and property flues subjected to yearly checks in order to ensure that they’re are totally safe.

The Gas Safety Certificate can be referred to in a number of ways which includes Landlord Gas Safety Record ( LGSR) or CORGI PROFORMA 12 (CP12). The later dating back to when the official body for gas safety in the UK was CORGI. However, the official body is now known as Gas Safe, hence it’s now usually called a Gas Safety Certificate or something along that line. But regardless of whatever you choose to call it, as long as you reside in the UK, it’s crucial to know that if you need one as soon as possible. So how do know if you need a Gas Safety Certificate?

If you’re a homeowner with a property that you live in, you’re not required by the law to obtain a Gas Safety Certificate. There’s nothing like a homeowner’s gas safety certificate, however we’d recommend you subject all you gas appliances and pipework to yearly examinations to ensure they’re functioning properly and safely.

If you’re a landlord in the UK, you’re required by the law to get a Gas Safety Certificate to ensure your property is safe for your tenants. You must reach out to an approved Gas Safe engineer who’ll carry out annual checks on your appliances to ensure that they’re totally safe.

You should have your boiler serviced every year. This ensures that your central heating system is running safely and efficiently, but it’s often also a requirement to keep your boiler’s warranty valid. To avoid disruption to your heating, the best time of year to service your boiler is the summer. You’ll often find that boiler companies will charge less because they have less work.

Breakdowns of boilers are quite common during the winter months and are usually very expensive to repair when this occurs. According to the research carried out recently by uSwitch, repairing a boiler can cost an average of about £314 with a figure over 20 percent of homes experiencing various heating system issues last year.

To answer the question of whether or not your existing home insurance will be enough to cover the boiler breakdown, the answer is probably not. This is due to the fact that heating system faults or breakdowns is a very common occurrence and as a result of poor maintenance practices as well as a high repair cost, several insurance companies often remove it from their home insurance policies.

Generally, you’d be given an option of what is termed as “emergency home cover which is an add on or extra to your home insurance policy. Luckily, this add on is quite inexpensive and may be as little as £4 or £5 per month. Depending on your need or budget, you can also purchase the add on as a “stand alone from your current insurer or another company. However, the stand alone option is usually more expensive.

The emergency home cover normally provides coverage for the boiler repair cost and few times, the rest of the central heating system as well. Being fully aware how important a boiler can be, insurance companies usually deliver a rapid response service as suggested in the name, “emergency home cover. However, the maximum pay out for call out charges is capped at a particular amount which usually ranges from £500 and £1,000. Apart from the call out fees, the emergency cover also includes a limit on the pay out amount for future required repairs of heating systems which includes both parts labour.

If you choose to install an LPG boiler, you’ll need to find an LPG supplier. They’ll deliver fuel to you every time your storage tank runs low. You can even rent a storage tank from them if you don’t want to buy one. Make sure you know who your local suppliers are and where they are based.

A combination boiler, also referred to as a “combi boiler, delivers both domestic hot water and space heating in a single package so as to save space, and in a lot of cases, money. These great features makes the appliance a very popular choice in UK homes and in fact, it represents more than 50 percent of all new boilers fitted in the UK on a yearly basis.

Most modern and high efficiency combi boilers are usually stainless steel condensing boilers which normally features an in-built secondary heat exchanger to deliver domestic hot water to a home or property. What’s more? When it comes to the heating season or the cold months, the combi boiler will operated as required to heat a structure and offer hot water for showers, sinks as well as other hot water appliances around the house. And when it gets to the warm season or summer months, the combi boiler will only work when there’s a need for domestic hot water which also helps you save more money.

Combi boilers are able to provide domestic hot water in such a way that’s energy efficient due to two primary reasons - the combi units possess a very high operating efficiency and also have a low internal water volume. As a result, in during the hot summer when space heating is not required, you’ll only have to pay to heat up the hot water that you really need and not an entire tank.

Combi boilers also have the following benefits:

✓ Lower costs. Due to the combined nature of the boiler and the lack of tank in the roof space, the installation time and costs are at a minimum.

✓ Saves space in your home as it effectively combines a central heating boiler with a water heater into one unit.

If your boiler is making strange noises or smells, or doesn’t seem to be working properly, it may need replacing. Boilers usually last about 10-15 years. Even if your boiler is working normally, it’s worth replacing when it gets this old. An annual check will establish if there are terminal problems with a boiler that cannot be fixed.

To ensure your boiler is functioning efficiently and to keep your home warm, it’s important to see that your boiler is serviced on a regular basis by a licensed boiler engineer. Failure to do this can result in sudden boiler breakdown which can be a hard hitting blow to one’s financial power especially when there’s no boiler cover to cushion the blow or totally avoid it all together.

When your boiler is covered, it implies that you’re protected in the event whereby your boiler or it’s controls malfunctions or break. Several boiler cover will include the servicing cost, while some may not so it’s advisable to always go through the details, no matter how small, before entering into a boiler cover agreement. Typically, a boiler cover will cost between £60 to £100 per year and the payment is made on a monthly basis. Various boiler insurance companies have varying cover cost, however, here are the common boiler cover policies:

• Homeserve charges from £13 per month

• EDF Energy costs from £13.29 per month

• British Gas from £12 per month

• Scottish Power from £13.13 every month

• CETRI UK charges from £13.50 every month

• 24/7 home rescue costs from £9.60 every month

• Gorgi Home Plan costs from £6 per month plus 3 months free

• Your repair charges from £9.60 per month

• NPower Boiler Cover costs from £10.92 every month

• SSE Boiler Breakdown Cover charges from £4.95 every month

It’s important to note that sometimes you have the option of adding your boiler cover to your existing home insurance, if you do not want a standalone policy for your boiler cover. In many scenarios, this is referred to as an extra or add on service referred to as “Home Emergency Cover. When compared to the standalone boiler policies, this is usually a lot cheaper as it comes in around £5 per month.

If you’re looking for a reliable or reputable source for your new gas boiler, you definitely won’t find much better than British Gas. Using a big firm like British Gas comes with a plethora of benefits , but of course there are also some drawbacks, with the boiler prices being the main one and biggest turn off for most homeowners. However, just before we delve straight in to the price, let’s look at a thing or two about the big company.

The company, “British Gas are not a boiler manufacturer as you probably would have first imagined. They’re actually a company that specializes in the installation of boilers. As a result, they’re able to install just about any type of boiler you can imagine from any manufacturer. Be it a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 8000 Style or a Baxi 600, they’re able to provide you with the cost of having these boilers installed in your home or property.

Combi boilers are perfect boilers for space-saving and this makes them very popular on the market. They’re also very efficient when it comes to heating water instantly and warm your in few minutes. The price of a new British Gas combi boiler varies on a number of factors. Generally, the installation prices of combi boilers start from £1,800. Therefore, if British Gas are to be competitive with their pricing it should also be around this price.

However, if you have a large house with several rooms with a higher demand for hot water, British Gas will most likely recommend boilers such as Worcester Bosch 440CDi and the likes. Judging from other firms in the market, the price to have these types installed should be in excess of £3,000.