Guides
Gas safety guides for Liverpool homes
The main pages cover checking engineers, landlords' duties, servicing and emergencies. These guides take particular situations in turn: a tenant moving in, a buyer viewing a house, a household deciding between a boiler and a heat pump.
Short answer
Pick the situation you're in. Tenants: start with your rights and moving in. Landlords: the gas safety record. Owners: questions to ask an engineer, and gas boiler or heat pump. Anyone with a problem right now: who to call.
- Questions to ask a gas engineerBefore, during and after the visit, with what good answers sound like.
- Gas safety records explainedWhat a landlord’s record must contain, who gets a copy and when.
- Gas safety for tenantsYour rights to a record, alarms and emergency heating, and how to report.
- Moving into a rented homeThe first-day checks: the record, alarms, the meter valve.
- Who to callEmergency line, engineer, supplier, landlord or HSE.
- Buying a home with a gas boilerThe paperwork to ask for, and the check to book.
- Gas boiler or heat pump?What each involves, and what’s funded.
How they're written
From HSE and the law, not from sales copy
Gas safety in homes is governed by the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 and explained by HSE, which oversees gas safety in Great Britain. Every guide here is built on HSE's own guidance and frequently asked questions, the regulations themselves, and GOV.UK's guidance on carbon monoxide alarms in rented homes. Local figures come from the Census 2021 for Liverpool. Each guide lists its sources and the date we read them.
The guides don't recommend engineers or firms. They explain what the rules require and what to check, so you can hold whoever does the work to them. If you rent, they also explain what your landlord must do and what you can do if it doesn't happen; if you let property, what you must do and when.
For short answers, see questions; for terms, the glossary; for everything we rely on, sources.
Liverpool
Why these situations
We chose these guides because of how Liverpool lives. More than half of the city's households rented in 2021, so tenants' rights, moving in and the gas safety record get guides of their own. Most homes heat with mains gas, so boilers, servicing and the choice between a new boiler and a heat pump come up for almost everyone sooner or later. And because the most serious risks, gas escapes and carbon monoxide, need quick decisions, the who-to-call guide puts the first step for each problem in one table.
A question about gas work in your home?
Tell us what you're trying to sort out. Your message reaches SEO-DONS LTD, the publisher of this guide, and we answer by email. We don't do gas work or recommend engineers, but we can tell you what to check and where. If you smell gas, don't write to us: call 0800 111 999 now.
What happens next
- Your message reaches SEO-DONS LTD, which publishes this guide.
- We reply by email with the rule or check that applies.
- Any work is between you and a Gas Safe registered engineer you choose.