Tenant, Gas Leak and illegal fitting. Advice needed
Not sure if this will be a biased subreddit.
I’m a tenant in a typical Victorian House in South London. Ive lived in this house for 1 year and been super happy. Unfortunately we’ve had a rather eventful day including a gas leak and looking for some thoughts from other UK landlords.
We are letting via an agency.
Today, we had an electrician over to fix a socket thay was causing a breaker to trip. The electricians were at it for a few minutes until they said they cant figure it out but they are suddenly smelling a gas leak. I got very confused, but when i went to the hallway, the smell hit me like a brick.
Called the agent office, they send an engineer over, the engineer finds a leak by a valve next to the gas meter in our storage room. He taps/caps(?) the leak and says he needs to call the National Gas Emergency.
An engineer comes over from NGE, he looks at the valve and says this is a straight up illegal fitting and he needs to turn off the gas. He says they will not turn it back on without the landlord fixing the illegal fitting. I quote:
”shouldnt be going thru walls, because it corrodes the copper. And it should be a single line fitting otherwise if there's leaks u can't tell”
The engineer mentions ”this looks like a crap job from a ”friend-job” type of thing”
I’ve attached a picture.
At this point, i believe the landlord will need to fix the illegal fitting, then pay to get national gas to turn it on again.
Before I take a firm stand against the agent, i’d like to see what peoples advice is here?
It’s -3C outside, we have single glazed windows so its going to be freezing cold tonight.
At this point, i dont trust the agent/landlord at all. After everything is done and dusted, is it reasonable for me to ask for a them to pay for an independent surveyor of my choosing to make sure its safe going forward?
This couldve been an extremely bad situation as we like to keep candles on as well.
Thanks for reading.
Not sure if this will be a biased subreddit.
I’m a tenant in a typical Victorian House in South London. Ive lived in this house for 1 year and been super happy. Unfortunately we’ve had a rather eventful day including a gas leak and looking for some thoughts from other UK landlords.
We are letting via an agency.
Today, we had an electrician over to fix a socket thay was causing a breaker to trip. The electricians were at it for a few minutes until they said they cant figure it out but they are suddenly smelling a gas leak. I got very confused, but when i went to the hallway, the smell hit me like a brick.
Called the agent office, they send an engineer over, the engineer finds a leak by a valve next to the gas meter in our storage room. He taps/caps(?) the leak and says he needs to call the National Gas Emergency.
An engineer comes over from NGE, he looks at the valve and says this is a straight up illegal fitting and he needs to turn off the gas. He says they will not turn it back on without the landlord fixing the illegal fitting. I quote:
”shouldnt be going thru walls, because it corrodes the copper. And it should be a single line fitting otherwise if there's leaks u can't tell”
The engineer mentions ”this looks like a crap job from a ”friend-job” type of thing”
I’ve attached a picture.
At this point, i believe the landlord will need to fix the illegal fitting, then pay to get national gas to turn it on again.
Before I take a firm stand against the agent, i’d like to see what peoples advice is here?
It’s -3C outside, we have single glazed windows so its going to be freezing cold tonight.
At this point, i dont trust the agent/landlord at all. After everything is done and dusted, is it reasonable for me to ask for a them to pay for an independent surveyor of my choosing to make sure its safe going forward?
This couldve been an extremely bad situation as we like to keep candles on as well.
Thanks for reading.