How To Pass Your Next Gas Safe Inspection w/ Ex-Inspector Terry Sawyer

A lot of engineers have had a concern email sent to them or a letter saying to them that this, this, an inspector is going to be going to visit on, uh, on this day at this time. Um, it's a horrible thing because most, for every, you know, for most engineers, you know, for 99% of the engineers, this is their, you know, it's their livelihood, it's their life. And all of a sudden they think, hang on a minute, I'm gonna have my, I'm gonna have my Gas Safe registration taken off me because of a, you know, complaint or a concern. That actually, I would say, a lot of them don't really turn out to be as serious. Yeah, take that bit of time, take that time to actually do the checks properly. And that's— that same thing applies to when you're doing gas safety checks. Now, the whole point of doing it is to make sure it's— is make sure it's working properly, you know. So little things like that, I say to people, just spend that little bit of time getting it right. And it will not come back.

This is the Field Rocket podcast. I'm your host, Tulik, and this is my co-host Aaron. And today we're joined by Terry, who's been a GasSafe inspector and also works on the tools for many years. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, good to be here.

Yeah, thank you for coming. Could you tell us a little bit about your background? What are you doing at the moment and how you actually got into being a GasSafe inspector?

Yeah, so I've been a qualified gas engineer for about 15 years now. Yeah, so on the tools and yeah, learnt my trade. And then a couple of years ago I see an advert for Gas Safe Inspector. They were looking for Gas Safe Inspector for East London. And yeah, I thought, you know what, it's a good opportunity probably to progress and see where I end up. And yeah, went for it and yeah, got the job and really enjoyed it.

And then, yeah, now there's a lot of special training and stuff that you have to do, or not as much.

Obviously you've got to be, you've got to be a qualified gas engineer. Obviously you've got to have a bit of experience in the industry to know what you're looking at. There's a lot of training you have to do on the subjects that you don't have qualifications on. So obviously not every gas inspector has every qualification. A lot of them have some really good really good experience and have done a lot of different things. You know, it's like a wealth of knowledge. It's really nice to be around people who, you know, you can have an open discussion about gas safety. So a lot of the guys have a lot of that. But yeah, so the things you don't know, you do a lot of training, a lot of training modules and a lot of courses to do just to bring you up to speed with some of the things that maybe you don't do every day as an engineer.

So what kind of things that you didn't do before that you got through the training?

Yeah, so I didn't have LPG qualification because around where I live, there's not a huge call for it. But some of the businesses that I used to inspect did have LPG qualifications. So if they have the qualification, then you have to ask them questions on that qualification. You need to have an understanding, even if you're not qualified, you need to have an understanding of what questions you're asking and what answers you're expecting back. If you don't know, you just—

Is it slightly awkward if you kind of, I guess, well, I don't know, is it awkward when you actually do it if you haven't actually sort of done it on the tools?

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, the majority, The good thing is when you're asking, you know, when you ask these questions when you're on an inspection, you're asking your technical questions. A lot of them still obviously are around your core gas, your basic stuff. So the majority of questions— so you do, but you still need to ask a couple of questions. So it's not particularly awkward as such because you're not asking them anything in depth. You're asking them pretty much basic stuff that they should know if they're doing LPG or doing commercial or anything really along, uh, so they're not anything to catch people out because you'll find a lot of people do have qualifications. There's no trick questions, no trick, exactly that. Yeah, no, no trick. No, no, no, no. But the problem is if, if you've got, um, if you've got a qualification, which a lot of guys do, if you, you know, when you've first done your exams and your qualif— you know, your ACS and stuff, a lot of people added on these modules because they, and then they never use them. You know, some guys said, I've got LPG. And I go, great. And they said, but I don't do LPG. So it's like, right, well, I've still gotta ask you questions on LPG. So they say, yeah, but I don't do it. And then it becomes a little bit, not awkward as such, but you know, they've gotta go back to the manual basically of what they learned because these questions are, you know, are pretty basic. If you were doing it regular, you would know the answers, you should know the answers. So yeah, that definitely helped me. But obviously my knowledge increased massively when I joined GasSafe because you've got to know these things, only the basics. I couldn't go out and start working on LPG and things like that, but I had enough knowledge to be able to know if someone knew what they were talking about.

I guess it'd be quite nice also that you're around kind of other people other inspectors, you get to see a whole range of situations that perhaps you wouldn't normally see in your everyday business.

No, especially. I like to— things always crop up, especially like team meetings and things like that. You could have 15, 20 inspectors all in a room and a topic will get brought up and it will just be discussed maybe for half an hour. And different inspectors will have a different view on on the answer. You know, different inspectors, same as different gas engineers, might do things a slightly different way. Exactly the same. But it's really good to be in a room where you can have your input on something and then another inspector will have their input because everyone has come from slightly different backgrounds. You know, some of the guys, the technical guys at GasSafe, are absolutely brilliant with what they know. You know, they're absolutely deep knowledge of of the industry, of regulations, technical bulletins, things like that. It's really good to be around these guys because they've got— a lot of the guys have got a huge amount of experience. So it's a really good place to work, actually, if you want to increase your knowledge base.

And how many inspections— what is the area you cover and how many inspections per week, per month do you normally do?

So normally, if you're just doing business inspections, normally it's 2 a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. So you've got to try and, yeah, they try and aim for 10 a week. Obviously, for, you know, for the amount of businesses around, depending on what area you're in, that can be, you know, a very small number compared to what you, how many businesses you need to see. So most inspectors cover quite a big area. Obviously around London, a lot of the inspectors have a lot of businesses in a, you know, small area, but you go further out, some of the inspectors have to drive for 2 or 3 hours to get to their inspection. Which obviously then they try and get, you know, the staff at Gas Safe who actually do all the appointments and arrange things, they try and keep everything in the two inspections in one area if they can, you know, within reason. But obviously it's not always possible. But yeah, two a day is what you'd be aiming for. And that ticks two businesses off and makes sure that they're, yeah, they're still operating as if they're new, make sure they're ready to go out and be safe. And if they've been doing it a long time, just to make sure they're up to date with the regulations and how you're supposed to do things.

Are the engineers nervous when you're coming out?

I would say most of them are, especially the new guys, the probation engineers freshly out of doing their ACS and stuff. But then I like the fact that people were a bit nervous. It was good because it means, yeah, they've probably had their head in a book. They've probably done a lot of studying, preparing for it, probably been over the routine of what they've got to do over and over. So, yeah, but I used to be quite relaxed on inspections. I tell people to take their time. I just get the best out of people when they're relaxed.

So you're treating it more as a kind of a training exercise and a kind of a forcing function to say, hey, let's double-check everything, make sure we're doing things right.

Yeah, no, I never used to go in there and be— I used to talk to people. We had a good chat beforehand. That's a good way to break the ice, to settle into an inspection. So, yeah, I used to do that. I used to get to know someone first, have a chat where they've done their training, things like that. And then, yeah, it was— although a lot of Gassave is not necessarily about training people and teaching, for me, it was a case of if they didn't know something, I would go through it with them. Because if I don't tell them, well, they're not going to know. And that was the way I did it. If they missed something, if they wasn't quite you know, exact, the answer, you know, if it wasn't the exact answer I wanted to hear, then we'd go through it. You know, I wouldn't give them the answer. We'd just go through it. You know, grab your book. What does your book say? You know, if they can find me the answer, that was normally a good enough, you know, a good enough reason to say, yeah, I don't have any issues. Because that's the main thing is if you don't know an answer, the fact that we've guessed it, because no one knows all the answers. You can just grab— if you— as long as you can get a book, you've got your books or your manuals, as long as you can get a book and find the answer, then, then you're doing it as safe as you can possibly do it. And that's— that was for me, was, was, um, a good way of working, especially on the inspections.

I was going to say, you mentioned like sort of like some things are overlooked, maybe mistakes happen. What are sort of the common mistakes that you find?

There were some things that, um, you know, so we always run through— I used to run through on inspections, I would run through the same process The inspection would run exactly the same for every single business or every single engineer that I see. I would run through the exact same thing. I would say things like tightness testing. Tightness testing for most engineers that have been doing it a long time should be bread and butter, should be off the top of your head. New guys, they work fresh, so they'd know exactly what pressure it needs to be at for how long. Some of the older guys would sort of jump straight into just giving me just one number and I'm saying, yeah, but there's a range. You can do the test to a range. What's the range? And they'd sort of just start guessing, but they'd normally give me an answer and it'd be right. It would definitely be within that range. But I'd say that's not the answer I want to see. But they've been doing it a long time, so they sort of say, well, that's how I've always done it. I said, yeah, guys that are fresh out of doing their ACS qualified, they're normally bang on because that's what's been drummed into them for a long time. Guys have been doing it a long time, been doing it in the industry a long time. They generally would not get the answer wrong. They just wouldn't sort of give me the perfect answer, things like that. There was always issues with certain tech checks that I wanted done. And obviously a lot of inspectors all ask the same question. I would say flue integrity test is certainly one that a lot of engineers, when I said to them, do a flue, let's carry out a flue integrity test. Well, that's going to be the first test. Let's do a flue integrity test. They would start looking around the flue. They'd start looking. Yeah, it's got clamps. Yeah, it's screwed. And I'd say to them, that's not, that's your checking the integrity of the flue. I get that visual integrity. But that's not what a flue integrity test is. And I'd say to them, right, we've got a copy of the manual there, the installation manual. Go to the commissioning page. You know, if there's a boiler there fitted, I'd say, did you commission it? Yeah, I commissioned it. Okay, show me your paperwork. You filled it all out, brilliant. But I'd go to that first box on the commissioning, commission book, you know, where it says to you, this is how you commission this appliance. The first box says carry out a flue integrity test. It tells you what oxygen readings you should be getting coming in the flue. All right, on the air intake, this is what you should be getting. If you're getting less than this, there's something wrong.

So it's not just looking at it.

No, it's not just looking at it. Yeah, you're testing the flue seals, you're testing is the flue blocked, is there an issue somewhere with the flue? Well, if you're not getting the oxygen readings the manufacturers are saying you should get, and every manufacturer wants the same option, and in Flu Integrity Test, it's always the same. And so many people had no clue what I was talking about, which I found strange, you know. And in that sort of thing, I would sit there, I wouldn't tell them the answer. I'd say to them, right, get that manual out. If you haven't got the manual here, download it on your phone. Let's have a look. And they give me the answer, and then we do the test, you know. And that, so that, that for me was a way. And then I said to them, well, now you're never going to forget that. Once you know that. But a lot of people didn't know that. I'm not quite sure why, when it's the first box on that commission checklist, because it says if you're not getting this reading, do not continue.

Is it because, like, in the past it wasn't trained quite the same way as it is now, or is it something else?

I think that's probably what it is. I mean, if I'm honest, I look back and I don't think at any point anyone ever said to me at training, when you're doing your flue checks, this is the one you should do first. I don't think I ever— and it's not till you're on these inspections and you actually highlight the importance of this flue integrity check. You know, if you've got a long flue that runs, you know, through a ceiling, 4 or 5 meters through a ceiling void, it could have multiple joints, multiple seals. Now, if one of them seals has failed, quite possible, then the flue integrity check will tell you that. You know, you might still get normal flu readings. So just doing a normal flu check might not tell you there's something wrong with the flu necessarily, you know. But that's— so they're little things I used to say, look, if you miss that, that could be quite— that could potentially be quite bad. So, um, yeah, that was one thing I didn't mind not telling people, you know, so I didn't mind hinting and showing them how to find it, you know, because for me that's—

that's—

that was quite important. Important test.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I can definitely see it in the books. Anything else that kind of came up quite regularly, or it was kind of a common thing?

I would say unsafe situations. So unsafe situations, you know, you've got a nice— you know, I used to say to people, have you got a copy of your unsafe situations book here? All right, that tells you what GasSafe say is an unsafe situation, whether it's immediately dangerous or at risk. So that would be one of the things engineers are told to bring with them. Now, I never used to keep a copy on me. I've got it downloaded on my phone, and I know I can always get the newest copy by downloading the PDF. You know, it's there, you can get straight on there and download it. Perfect. You can look through it. The amount of people, when I question them on some unsafe situations, um, this was a big thing for me because I probably am guilty of this. Before I was an inspector of over-categorizing a safety issue because I didn't want to leave something that I thought was potentially dangerous, you know, and you go down that route of going, yeah, but I want to sleep at night, you know, I want to sleep at night. So a lot of people, so I used to say, so one of the first things I'd say to people when it came to unsafe situations was I said, before you answer any questions on unsafe situations, I said, I'm going to give you some scenarios. You need to tell me if it's ID or if it's at risk. And I say to them, before you do that, just want to picture yourself in front of an appliance, right? And it's got a safety issue. If it's going to kill you now, standing in front of it with it running, it's got to be ID. If it's not going to kill you now, but it might kill you tomorrow or the day after, it has to be at risk. You know, I'd say to them, is it going to kill you now? And that was always— and they go, well, that makes sense. Because people are too quick to jump on. That's pretty bad. I'm gonna have to ID this, cap the boiler off.

It's quite tricky though. Like, if you're a new engineer, let's say you're freshly out, you're a little bit— it's on the border. And you want to sleep at night and you want to, you don't want to kill anyone. So how do you kind of judge or, you know, deal with that?

Yeah, that is difficult because you've got, you've got, um, you've got what the regulations say on one, you know, the way I looked at it, you've got what the regulations say on one side and then you've got common sense on the other side. Most engineers are going to go with common sense. I don't really want them to use that, you know, I don't really want them to use that appliance. So, so You know, there's no— there used to be, the way they used to do it, there used to be your warning labels, your stickers that went on the appliance used to say 'at risk' or 'immediately dangerous,' 'do not use,' 'do not use.' All right, but that gave you sort of a— well, one sticker is really bad, one sticker could be bad, you know. So now there's just one sticker, you know, the way— the simple way of doing things, one sticker, 'danger, do not use.' Okay, so I would say to people, well, if you're really worried about that appliance Talk to the customer. You're going to turn it off before you leave anyway. You're going to turn it off because that's what you— if it's at risk, you're going to turn it off. If it's ID and you can, and you're 100% it's ID, you're capping it. They can't use it, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna hurt someone. For me, it comes down to how you talk to the customer. Now, you might get a customer, you tell them their boiler's at risk, um, it might be just flue readings are slightly out. You know, nothing, nothing absolutely horrendous, but potentially it's got the potential to be dangerous.

Yeah, it's not going to kill you today, but it might kill you, you know.

But it might. Yes, it could get worse. It could get worse. It could all of a sudden, you know. Um, but you'll find some customers, some customers, uh, will say, no, we're not using the boiler. Brilliant. You know, brilliant. They, they're so petrified. So again, it's how you talk to the customer. You know, if you've got something and you just think, yeah, I just really don't want to leave it on I do not want to leave that property with them having the ability to turn the appliance on, even though they technically can. Then it's how you portray the severity of it. I say they just see a warning notice, they see a label that says danger, do not use. So most people, common sense says I probably shouldn't use it until it's fixed. That's why I say listen. Yeah, yeah. I'll just say to engineers when they, when they say, yeah, but I wouldn't want to leave that on. Oh no, you wouldn't want to leave it on, but it technically, you can't start capping it off unless you've got permission to do so. You might have permission by the customer to cap it off, in which case, yeah, that's fine. Um, but it's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the difficult thing. It's, it's getting the right, it's, it's categorizing the, the, the, uh, the The danger, the seriousness, is categorizing it correctly. But what you do after is, you know, the way you talk to the customer might mean that they don't turn the boiler back on, you know, and that sort of thing. That's how I used to explain it to people. It's the best way to deal with that.

And you mentioned about term complaints. I'm guessing you're talking about complaints to GasSafe, is that correct? Because it— because you might have a situation possibly. Where an engineer like you cap it off and then another engineer comes and then he says, okay, maybe it's okay and uncaps it.

Yes. So that does happen. It is quite— if you get someone who knows, again, I've had it in the past, even when I've been out working myself and I've gone to somewhere to do a second opinion. Well, I've had an engineer around, he's capped my boiler off, he said it's dangerous. And I've gone there and I said, okay, well, let's, let's, what, what are they, what the reasons they've said that they've, they've capped it off. Um, and it might be, um, again, okay, so, so flue reading slightly out, flue reading slightly out, okay. Um, it's got to be at risk because it's not running to the manufacturer's safe standard, okay. That's the manufacturer specify, these are what the flue readings need to be, this is the maximum it's allowed to be. But if it's a room-sealed flue, then it's— then flue gases are going outside. You know, there's no immediate danger to anyone standing in front of that boiler whilst it's running. But there could be at some point. There could be, you know, the flue, the case seal on the boiler might fail. You know, then you could potentially have products of combustion entering a property. Well, then yeah, then straight away we've got an ID. So it's, it's that, it's them things where people just again, they want to cover their back, and every engineer wants to cover their back. And that's when they, you know, they, they will then go that extra bit and, and make it completely safe so that no one is at risk, which is what, as an engineer, everyone wants to do. But the problem is that's, that's not That's not what the regulator, it's not what Unsafe Situations says.

But that's what everyone wants to do, is that you kind of want to make it safe. Yeah. So what actually, like, if you're an engineer, if you get a complaint about use of GasSafe, what happens in those cases?

So normally you'll be informed, you'll be informed that a complaint has been made against you. It will give the property details, address, things like that. And when a complaint's made, the person the person who's made the complaint will often be asked if they would like the engineer to attend at the same time as the inspector. As an inspector, I used to like it when people attended with me. One, they're there to— you can sort of go through what the issues are. You haven't got to ring them up after and explain to them, these are the things that were wrong. Sometimes complaints are made because a boiler has not been fitted great, but it doesn't mean to say it's been fitted unsafe. It doesn't mean to say it's— no, yeah, so I've seen, you know, I've seen some horrible looking boilers in my time. It doesn't mean that they— it doesn't mean they're not safe, and it doesn't mean that they've, um, it doesn't mean that they've not gone with building regulations. You know, they might meet all them and tick all the boxes but it might look horrendous. You know, a gas pipe running up diagonally across a kitchen from floor to ceiling at a diagonal. Well, there's nothing to say that there's anything wrong with that, but someone might make a complaint about that because someone else might go, you can't have that. You should ring GasSafe. So these things happen. These things happen.

Yeah, I was going to say, as part of the complaints, is there like a kind of a filter? Before you send out an inspector or all complaints an inspector comes out?

Yes and no. There is and there isn't. It just depends on what the complaint is. And head office deal with a lot of that first. They're the ones that get the complaints. And sometimes even as an inspector you'll get sent out to something and you'll be straight away you'll be thinking, this probably isn't, you know, it probably isn't warranted that we're on our way to do a complaint for this. We still have to test everything. So, so the inspector will go through all the tests that we make the engineers do during normal inspections, because we need to test that the boiler has been fitted, that it's running well, that the gas pressures are right, that the tightness test has been done, there's no gas leak. So we have to do all of that. I used to quite enjoy doing these concern visits, they were called. Yeah, it was just a concern, not necessarily a complaint, because it's just a concern. Someone's got a concern about an installation of a gas appliance. And I used to quite enjoy doing it because I got my hands dirty again, you know. I got on the tools and I tested, done all the testing and took all the readings down, you know, on my report. And I would say, yeah, we did find things wrong, but normally we would find other things that have not met the, the, the safety standard or the manufacturing instructions. Manufacturing instructions are probably the most important document with any gas appliance, with any boiler. Yeah, if the manufacturers say that that is safe, then it's— then it's— they're happy, you know, they're happy. It might not be to the necessary standard, but if that's what the manufacturers say, well, then you have to go with what the manufacturers say overall.

Is there ever things where the, the manufacturers and GasSafe sort of dispute each other? You know, like you said, that the, the manufacturer said it's safe but it might not be. Is there any— is there many disputes from manufacturers and GasSafe?

I would probably say, I'd probably say the biggest, one of the biggest disputes, um, personally, like I say, this is just my own opinion on it, uh, would be that, you know, regulation states that you can only have a 1 millibar drop in pressure between the gas meter and the appliance when it's, you know, in use. Okay, so it has to be, the gas pipe has to be sized correctly so that if you're getting 20 millibar at the gas meter whilst the boiler's running, then you must be getting 19 at the boiler. All right, so 1 millibar drop. Okay, that is an absolute perfect scenario. You know, that is the most perfect scenario you can get. And you may get that if the gas meter is sitting, you know, 3 feet below the boiler. You may get that, you know, you may get it if it's within a couple of meters. You— it's very easy to get that. Um, but manufacturers have their own minimum pressures that the boiler can run safely, you know. Now, you can't penalize someone if the installation, uh, you know, if they've got 3 millibar drop between meter and boiler, but the boiler actually has got, you know, it's got more gas than what the manufacturers say that they need. Um, so that's, that's, that was a, that's a big thing that for me, because that's always been the case ever since I first trained. It's always been that 1 millibar, 1 millibar is what you're looking for. But if the manufacturers say, no, we're happy with that, we're happy with the amount of gas at the boiler when it's running on 4-way, then there's not a lot you can really do about it because the manufacturers are saying it's fine.

Yeah, because otherwise you're going to have to rip up the whole whatever the feed is, and if it's on one side of the house, uh, that's a, you know, a huge job.

Yeah, exactly that. And if you start, you know, looking at the, you know, the size of some of the modern boilers, the modern combis and stuff, you know, 38, 40 kilowatt combi boilers, um, and they've got a boiler at the back of the house and they've got a gas meter at the front of the house, well, all of a sudden you're talking absolutely massive amount of gas pipe. Now if you've got a bare carcass, you know, you've ripped out the whole property and you've got a lovely route from front to back, well then there's absolutely no excuse really because your pipe sizing, it's brand new pipework, your pipe sizing calculations, that's what you studied to do. You should be able to work out, you know, there's apps for it now, you know, you can pipe, you can pipe size based on the size of the appliance from the meter, the distance, how many elbows you use, so you shouldn't really get it wrong. But it was difficult to penalise someone who's connected, you know, there's already a gas supply there. Gas supply was fine for the new boiler. The inlet pressure at the boiler, well, on full rate was fine, you know, for that new boiler. Well, this heart, you can't penalise someone for it. You know, you can penalise them if they've connected to a gas supplier and there's a problem with that gas supply. It's got issues with it because they, most people then turn around and go, no, I didn't fit that. But as soon as an engineer connects to an existing gas supply, they take— that is now their gas supply from the meter to the appliance. So if there's a problem with that gas supply, it's now on them, not on the person who put it in originally. But as long as it meets that minimum pressure, then the manufacturers are happy. The boiler is going to run safe.

From the engineer's point of view, it's quite— I would imagine it would be quite scary to to have a complaint about you? Because, you know, this is your business, this is your livelihood.

Yeah, so it is. I mean, a lot of engineers have had a concern email sent to them or a letter saying to them that this inspector is going to be going to visit on this day, this time. It's a horrible thing because for most, you know, for most engineers, you know, for 99% of engineers, this is their, you know, it's their livelihood, it's their life. And all of a sudden they think, hang on a minute, 'Oh, I'm gonna have my Guest Safe registration taken off me because of a complaint or a concern.' But actually, I would say a lot of them don't really turn out to be as serious, you know, as serious. I mean, again, that's why they've called them concerns, because it is only a concern as to how something's been left or was something done properly. It is just a concern, you know. Um, you know, you get it for silly things like, uh, for, for someone's been and serviced the boiler. Someone serviced the boiler and something's not right after. Well, it might not have been anything the engineer's done. The engineer's done his service. It might just be, unfortunately, one of them things that happens when you start touching something that hasn't been dismantled for some time, and all of a sudden you've put it back and you might find there's a problem somewhere else. But some people would then ring Gas Safe and say, I don't think this has been done properly. And because they've made a call, it would normally have to be looked at, you know. And it's a horrible thing to get the email through to say you've got a concern made against you, because it's your life, it's your business. Um, and most people do take it pretty seriously because, you know, it's, um Yeah, it's not a nice email to get, you know, especially when you think, I do a good job, I'm a safe engineer, you know.

Well, I think for any business, like when you have like a complaint come through, you know, it's, you know, it's obviously a way to learn, etc. But there is part of you, and then if you have the added pressure of that, you know, you could have your license taken away, you know, it's fair enough that you you know, you do take it very seriously and definitely impact you.

Oh, of course. I mean, on the other thing, you know, for a lot of the new guys who are listening to this and new guys coming through, I mean, concerns are— I mean, if you're getting a concern against you, you know, once a week, once a month, it will start to get picked up, you know, it will get picked up on, um, and then it will trigger an inspection. All right, it will flag up on the system and GasSafe will say, right, we're gonna have to send an inspector out to come and see you, go through some testing, go through— and you know, I had it before where we had concerns against someone, um, but actually practically they were really good. You know, I had no issues with them practically. Um, but yeah, generally, I mean, it's It doesn't mean you get a concern against your name. It doesn't mean, oh my God, my registration's being suspended. You know, it means we're gonna look at this and if there is a problem, we're gonna give you the opportunity to go and make it right. You make it right, that's fine. But you do that more than a few times, ClassSafe, they're gonna wanna come and see you. And that's when things can sort of turn a lot worse because if you don't perform well on that inspection after these concerns you've had, Well, that's when Gas Safe will be like, well, look, how many chances do you want to get it right? And really, you shouldn't really need that many chances to get it right. You should be going, yeah, I made a mistake, I'll fix it. I've learned from it. I won't do it again. And that's it. And that's really how far it has to go. It doesn't go any further than that. But a lot of people have this misconception.

Okay.

I was going to say, how often do you find you know, because there's technical bulletins and stuff like that all the time— that there's changes made and then you go to inspect something, or there's been a concern raised, and it's because there's been changes that the engineer's not aware of, or something like that. How often does that happen?

It does happen a lot. I used to go and see business— I mean, even now, even me, you know, being back on the tools and doing it Um, we still get questions asked. Why has this been left? Well, that's actually all right. Okay, well, you know, uh, it's, it's, um, obviously there's probably a lot of engineers now where I'm probably a little bit stricter now than I was before I was at Gas Safe, because now I, my eyes are a little bit more open to all the little things that maybe get missed a bit too often during gas safety checks and things like that. And where I say to someone, no, that regulation's changed, that's okay. No, that's not okay. But it does happen. People don't— I mean, you think you don't have to retrain to get your ACS qualification. It's once every 5 years. I get a lot of guys that go, that wasn't even mentioned 5 years ago. I'm coming up to my renewal soon. And I think, well, the chances are in 5 years, Yes, updates. GasSafe do try and get updates out, but it's very difficult. People don't necessarily, you know, you don't necessarily read it. You get your Gas Engineer magazine, you know, GasSafe send you out, you know, a registered engineer magazine. Well, that's got a lot of updates in it. I don't know how many people would actually read, actually take the time to sit there and read through. They'll have a technical bulletin update in there. We're talking very minor things though, probably not the sort of things you see day to day. You know, um, it's, it's again, this, it's, it's manufacturer's instructions that probably change as well, which people still fit boilers and do something, and you think, well, that's not, that's not regulation, you know, that's too close to that internal corner. The manufacturers say this. So you do see that quite often where, where as an inspector you still see people who are still working to, again, go back to tightness testing. You know, all of a sudden people are going, oh yeah, 10 millibar, let by test, 10 millibar. I go, all right, yeah, well that's not wrong, but what's the range you're allowed? Yeah, 10 is what I was taught when I first started. 10 is where you want to be, right? I go, 10 is not wrong, but that's not the whole answer. And this is sort of something basic, but they go, yeah, but I always aim for 10. And you say, well, that's fine, but you don't have to just aim for 10. You've got a nice window. You know, to aim for. And that would crop up a lot, just where they haven't been back. And if they went back to do their ACS renewal the next week, they would know, they'd know the new, you know, they'd know it. They'd probably still aim for 10 because most engineers do, you know, you get stuck in your ways, which is not wrong, you know, you're not doing anything wrong. But if you want to impress a gas safety inspector, you this is what we're looking for now. It might change again soon, but this is what I'm looking for now. And that's the answer. That's what's going to get you a, yeah, brilliant, carry on, let's work through it.

If you have an inspection coming up, you've got a letter or email come out to you, what kind of things should you do before the kind of like a quick summary of things that you should do before the inspection?

So I always say to people, so Gas Safe normally ask to see 2 2 sites. Doesn't mean— doesn't have to be a site necessarily that you've worked on, doesn't have to be a boiler you've done, um, just somewhere you can run through these tests, do all your tests, all your commissioning checks almost, you know, that— yeah, you— somewhere you can run through, um, all of these. I say to people, familiarize yourself with appliances, all right, because one of my biggest Things that drove me mad. I would— I'd go to a, uh, I'd go to an inspection and they'd say, oh, I fitted this boiler. I go, brilliant, paperwork there. Yeah, let's have a look at your— let's have a look at your commission sheet you filled out. Fantastic. Oh, you haven't put any— like, each— most modern appliances, uh, have service mode. They will have a service mode. Okay, some of them are really easy to get into, some of them are a little bit complicated. You've got to put codes in, you've got to go through different menu options. The amount of people that didn't know how to get into service mode. And I said to them, but you fitted this boiler? They go, yeah. So how did you commission it if you didn't get into service mode? Oh yeah, uh, well, I did do it, I just can't remember, you know. And I'm just sitting there. So I say to people on inspection, familiarize yourself with the appliance that you're going to, you know. It will do you— it will take a lot of pressure off. Every manufacturer's instructions should tell you how to get into service mode. So if someone didn't know I wouldn't tell them, you know. I know from all the years I've done it, I know how to get into most service modes, some easier than others, but I wouldn't tell them. I'd say to them, right, got the manual here, okay, brilliant, find it, show me in the manual how to get into service mode. Because yeah, I understand if they never worked on that appliance before, okay, might be a bit, you know, it's a learning curve. You're going to learn how to get into it now, and we're going to do the test properly. But people would miss things on the commission sheet that used to drive me mad because they haven't done the checks. Maximum rate test was normally always filled in. Minimum rate test was a lot of the time was left blank. And I say to them, did you do minimum rate? They go, yeah. I said, you haven't written anything down. Oh yeah, I just forgot. They didn't do it. If you'd done it, you'd write it down. That's the whole point of it being there. So things like that, you know, if you're gonna, you know, if you, if you're doing these checks, just make sure it's, make sure it's done because you will get pulled up on it. If it's not done. And you can guarantee that one time you do an inspection and you didn't write it in, it will fail. You'll have a problem with that boiler. That appliance will have a problem. And all of a sudden you go, hang on a minute, your boiler's now at risk because it's got a problem at minimum rate. You didn't write it down. So basically you left, potentially left that customer with an appliance that wasn't safe from day one, because if you had checked it, you would have known from day one. Not necessarily always the case, but it's easy to pick up on them sort of things if you haven't written anything down.

So you're saying just follow it, fill it in properly, do it properly.

Yeah, take that bit of time. Take that time to actually do the checks properly. And that same thing applies to when you're doing gas safety checks. When you're doing gas safety checks, take your time to actually do the checks properly because too many people— and I will look through people's paperwork And I do it now as an engineer. I go out and if there's an existing gas safety record there, I will have a look at it just because I'm nosy. And I will normally pick up on so many mistakes, you know, little things where they're not filled out properly. And it will say gas rate, all right, gas rate, what's the gas rate? And they'll write, you know, it's a 25 kilowatt boiler, they'll write 25. And I think, we haven't gas rated, have you? You've just written down what the kilowatt says on the front of the boiler. You know, the whole point of doing it is to make sure it's, it's make sure it's working properly, you know. So little things like that, I say to people, just spend that little bit of time getting it right and it will not come back, you know, because you don't know when GasSafe are going to want to see these records or they're going to want to go over something you've done. And if they find— guess, you know, as an inspector, you're there to pick it apart almost. You pick something apart, the engineer won't do it again. But if you can impress them from the word go, then you haven't got nothing to worry about.

How often do you come away from an inspection where everything's perfect, everything's done right, you've barely had to question? How often is that there, a perfect inspection, as they were?

Um, do you know what, I just, I had a couple, there's a couple that I still think of, and the engineers, normally newer guys actually, were so well prepared I mean, I mean, they'd have a folder, they'd have a folder out to do a tightness test, and it will get— and they would have done this themselves, and it would be bullet pointed exactly what they're doing, you know, exactly how to do it, when to do it, what's the next stage. And I'll be sitting there thinking, that's really good because you can't get it wrong, it's in front of you. And you go, no, no, I'll go through this every time so I don't miss anything.

Okay, that's brilliant, you know.

Or they've printed out Yeah, checklist, because a checklist is actually— if you're new to something and you start to forget one of them, one, one of them, one of them procedures, you miss one out, then the next one you miss it out again, eventually it will become the norm to not do it because you've forgotten about it. So if you've got a checklist as a new engineer, then you can't really go wrong. But this— I used to go to people that have these, they'd print out technical bulletins A lot of guys don't even read technical bulletins, but they are actually really, really good sources of information. Um, smart metering, smart metering, you know, doing gas rates on smart meters. There's so many different smart meters now where they never used to be. Now there's so many different brands, makes, sizes, everything. I'd often go to someone, right, gas rate that for me, and they go, I don't even know how to get that on, I don't know how to turn it on. I say, well, you know, there's a technical bulletin for that. And I'd have guys who have printed out that technical bulletin and kept it in their van. So when they come across that meter, they go to me, yeah, no worries, I've got a technical bulletin here. I know how to gas rate this. And I go, that's brilliant. You know, that is, that's perfect. That is exactly what you'd expect to see.

Yeah, I think your comment about the checklist as well, you know, we use a lot of checklists in our company. But, you know, there's a reason for it. You know, aeroplane pilots have checklists, you know, anything that's involving safety, just, you know, even if you're new, you've been doing it for ages, you just need, you just need to go through it. Your mind is not brilliant at remembering stuff. So a checklist is just perfect.

No, no. And it's too easy as a gas engineer. It's too easy, especially when you're doing, if you're doing the same thing day in, day out, you know, same thing, gas safety checks, gas safety checks. You know, I used to speak to, I used to speak to companies and they'd say, oh yeah, 'You know, the company I work for, they expect us to do 15 gas safety checks a day.' And I sit there and go, 'How can you possibly do 15 gas safety checks a day and actually do them properly?' You know, you're talking of doing 15 a day, you're talking what, you're doing them 10-15 minutes each one. You know, you come across a property that's got a fire, there's no way you're going to be in there 15 minutes. No. So too many people getting this Too many new engineers get sucked into this fast working, you know, this 100-mile-an-hour gas engineer working. How many jobs can we smash out? How many gas safety checks can we smash out? Yeah, there is a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure because a lot of these new guys, unfortunately, these— a lot of new engineers, um, it's difficult to get a customer base. It's difficult to get regular work unless you are doing tons of jobs in a day. You know, it's very difficult to get started. I get a lot of guys ringing up saying, have you got any work? Like, can I, can we come out with you? Can I get a bit of experience with you? And that sort of thing. And I take people out and I say, yeah, come with me, I'm gonna go and fit a boiler on Tuesday. Come with me, we'll go through it and I'll show you how to do it. The thing is, they should have already done a lot of that when, before they've even got qualified. You have to do your portfolio. So they should have already done a lot of that, but unfortunately again, it's all rush, rush, rush. How quickly can we smash this portfolio out and I can get qualified? So in that time of doing the portfolio, quite a few of them haven't actually gained any experience. They've just got their photos and done that. So the actual real-world experience is difficult to build up a customer base. So then you start getting the companies saying, well, look, can you do gas certs in the area? You know, we'll, we'll just go and smash them out. And, and unfortunately, that's— I could probably go into— I could probably follow these guys around, go straight in after them, and I could probably find issues that weren't even mentioned.

And I guess when you're saying about checklists and how, you know, you miss something once, if you're doing 15 a day, if you've missed the first— on the first one, by the 15th, you've, you've totally forgotten that's even a thing you usually do.

It's very easy to get stuck in a routine. And I also find this with some of the older guys who've been doing gas a long time. They were stuck in a routine that they learned 20 years ago. And I'll be saying to them, yeah, but that's changed now. You know, that's changed. That's gone. Them days of— I remember one guy, and he'd been doing it a very long time, really lovely guy. He'd been fitting a lot of boilers. He was very experienced. I asked him a question about the gas meter and asked him a question about how could you prove, how could you prove that the emergency control valve, how can you prove that it's leaking, that it's letting by? You do your let-by test, it's fouled. You do it again, it's fouled. How can you prove that that is letting by? He was going, oh, I don't really know. And he was going, because I'm not allowed to touch the gas meter, am I? So, and I said, what are you talking about? And he said, I'm not allowed to touch that, am I? That's, that's, that's, that's, I can only touch the pipework off the gas meter. And I said to him, long time ago you couldn't touch any of that. I said, but now you can. Now you, that's how you test that to see if it's leaking. But he had no idea. And I thought, I'm not sure how he had no idea because he's obviously done courses every, you know, every 5 years. So yeah, I don't really know. Yeah, I don't know. That sort of thing cropped up a bit.

Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, Terry. That was very useful. And yeah, it's going to be very, very helpful for the engineers that are coming through. So thank you. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, no. Yeah, absolutely fine. Thank you for having me. It's nice to be able to sort of talk about these things because, you know, people don't really get that opportunity very often. Especially from someone like me who's been on both sides of the fence. And I would definitely, I would say definitely go back to GasSafe at some point as an inspector. You know, it was a great job, great team of people, no one to be afraid of. That's for the new guys, you know, no one to be afraid of at GasSafe. They're there for a reason. It is to put you under a bit of pressure to see how you cope. But if You know, if you're inexperienced, you just go with what you know and what the book says. And as you gain experience, you just don't forget the basics. You know, that's the best thing you can do, because I say, GasSafe are there just to make sure everyone is safe, basically, and that someone doesn't slip through the net who potentially might hurt someone, you know.

Excellent. Well, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. We'll speak to you next time. Thanks a lot.

That's perfect. Okay, thank you, Terry. That's brilliant.

Thank you very much.