Gas Safe Register

Would you trust a tradesperson because they look like they know what they're doing? On this episode of the Marshycast, I'm joined by TV star Denise Van Alten and Ronan Howard, SME champion for Gas Safe Register, to talk about why young homeowners can be more likely to trust a tradesperson based on appearances rather than qualifications.

We talk about why personal recommendations shoot straight to the top of our list and why so many of us don't actually think technically check someone's credentials before letting them into our homes.

Denise shares what happens when a friend trusted someone who wasn't properly qualified and the mess they left behind.

And Ronan explains the really simple check we can all make before booking someone to work on gas appliances in our homes.

It's Paul Marsh, and I'm delighted to say that I've been joined by TV star Denise Van Alten and Ronan Howard, who is the Gas Safe Register's SME champion.

Good morning.

How are you both? Good morning.

And this guy won't take responsibility for it.

So

you'd already had your plumbing apprenticeship, but you wasn't gas safe or anything? No, I

wasn't gas safe, no.

So you

went to British Gas.

Would you go into British Gas with the idea of, like, I'll get my gas safe here, or...?

Yeah, the idea was, in my head, I wanted to get my gas safe, do five years with them, go out on my own.

But I didn't.

It's a myth.

So back when Gas Safe Register took over Corgi, within a matter of a few years, that register doubled.

and back then before then there was always this concern about no one's coming into the sector there's always plenty of people coming into the sector because it's such an easy sector to come into yeah it really really is and once you get your gas ticket which is reasonably easy to take it you consider the heating engineer which is completely wrong you've only been taught how to safely get a copper pipe from a border to a gas meter and check a flu that's it basically and you've now been deemed once you've got that gas your gas certificate thing you can go on and get all your other certificates and sex etc and you don't understand anything about eating nothing whatsoever um no apprenticeships are still important yeah but ideally you know the colleges are getting all the money they get all the funding um it should really go to the sme that's employing the apprentice

Yeah, I got James Clark on from Elite the other week and we were talking and he said he's got one lad, but it just costs him so much money and he gets no funding.

yeah?

They undo the bayonets, and then the labourers move the fucking cookers in and out, right? And so to save time on a gas fitter going round, because it's just plug-in cooking, plug out bayonet, which you can't do if you're not gas safe.

Like your old nan used to unplug them, pull the cooker out, and she'd wash. That's

the thing.

And then they'd plug them back in.

But if they're unplugged and left and that valve isn't tested, that could be letting gas through, couldn't it, that bayonet? Because bayonets can stick and they can let gas through.

So that's why you've got to be gas safe to just plug a cooker in and unplug a cooker.

On this scenario, because there's always that debate of... electricians, gas engines being dangerous.

Both of those require certifying.

Gas servicing is required once a year by a gas safe registered competent person.

And the certificate will indicate whether there are any recommended actions.

Okay.