Carbon monoxide poisoning - avoid the Silent Killer
The news headlines may have said that ten people had a lucky escape when they were released from hospital after treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning but the same cannot be said for their landlord who was fined £4,400 and ordered to pay £1,500 costs after pleading guilty to two charges under the Gas Safety Installations and Use Regulations 1988.
Though by no means unique, the case does provide a salutary lesson in the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning and on the needs to comply with the gas safety regulations.
In the aforementioned case, the tenants of the flat were not even present on the evening of the incident and weren’t amongst the ten that were treated for carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, though subsequent tests showed that that it was “their” boiler which was producing high levels of CO and that there was a clear path for the CO to migrate to upstairs properties and not out through a flue or a ventilation system. And it was their neighbours in three adjoining flats who all suffered symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.
In this case the landlord “only” had to plead guilty to two charges under the Gas Safety Installations and Use Regulations but the case demonstrates how the charges could easily have been even more serious. Four thousand parts per million in air of carbon monoxide is capable of killing someone within fifteen minutes. After this incident, tests showed production of over twenty thousand parts per million of CO within fifteen seconds of the boiler being started, and despite being in adjoining flats, some of the victims had CO levels in their blood estimated to be between 30% and 40% - a coma can be brought about by levels of just 50% and in this case the HSE said it was very lucky that no one was killed. If the carbon monoxide leak and the poisoning it caused had happened slightly later in the night while tenants were asleep, the incident could have resulted in a terrible tragedy.
Remember, statutory obligations are placed on a landlords to maintain gas appliances that they own and they can potentially face charges of manslaughter if they fail in their duties and someone dies as a result.
It is a legal requirement that only trained, competent people work on gas appliances, the only accreditation currently recognised by the HSE is a membership of CORGI. An installer’s CORGI ID card has details of the types of appliances that an installer is trained to work on and remember, it is the landlord’s responsibility to ensure that gas fitters are CORGI registered with the correct qualifications.
If you are unsure about a fitter’s accreditation, you can call CORGI on 0800 915 0485.
To purchase a Carbon Monoxide detector go to
www.flat-living.co.uk/ products/carbon_monoxide_detectors.htm
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DISCLAIMER
Any external products and services listed do not necessarily carry the endorsement of retirement-flat-living or imply a recommendation. retirement-flat-living.co.uk does not recommend any of the advertisers and cannot be held responsible for any work undertaken by or purchased from any advertiser on this site.
Whilst retirement-flat-living makes every effort to ensure that the articles included in the web site are accurate at the time of publication it is inevitable that, as time goes by and circumstances change, the articles may contain out of date information. Readers are strongly urged to check the content of these articles before taking any action that could have legal or financial consequences. retirement-flat-living shall not be liable for any loss, damage or inconvenience arising from inaccuracies.