Silent night not silent killer: get your gas appliances checked for Christmas
More than one-quarter of UK households could be at risk from CO poisoning this Christmas. Twenty-seven per cent of Brits admit they haven’t taken steps to protect their home and their loved ones – including getting their gas appliances safety checked.
More than a quarter (27 per cent) of the 2,000 UK adults polled said they haven’t had their boiler serviced in the past year. One-fifth (22 per cent) said a CO leak at home is the Christmas ‘present’ they’d least welcome. However, one-third (34 per cent) don’t have, or don’t know if they have, a working audible CO alarm to alert them to a leak. More than half didn’t know that breathlessness and collapsing can be symptoms of CO poisoning.
Jonathan Samuel, chief executive of Gas Safe Register, says: “It’s crucial to be proactive about making your home and your loved ones safe this festive season. We recommend an annual check for your gas appliances by a Gas Safe registered engineer and, as a second precautionary measure, getting a carbon monoxide alarm”
Many of those polled correctly identified signs of unsafe gas appliances, which include: increased condensation (85 per cent), lazy yellow flames (76 per cent), dark stains around gas appliances (76 per cent) and the boiler’s pilot light blowing out (67 per cent).
