Watchdog - BBC1 tonight - looking at illegal gas work

[GasSafePR]

Hello all

You may want to watch BBC1's Watchdog show tonight as there is due to be a big piece on illegal gas workers.

I think there are a few surprises in store for them...

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

Ill be watching it on BBC I player then at the weekend hopefully

 

[chelsea]

nice one.i will be watching that

 

[Bernie2]

I feel for that lady who lost her daughter.

But otherwise, nothing new.

Its an on going cowboy problem, but while it costs £3500 just to get registered you are always going to get the same old problems.

If safety is the prime concern then bring training prices down:

Lets be honest this sort of program has been a regular item for years now and its not stopped anybody.

Bring course prices down to manageable levels and allow DIYers in their own home to get their work tested for a reasonable fee off GaSAfe and we might start getting somewhere.

But while a full domestic acs card costs about £3000 for about a fortnights testing every five years and GaSAfe membership if you include compulsory insurance another £500. A university student can pay less than £3000 for a years tuition, and come out a lawyer or doctor, then probably earn more in pocket money than a Plumber gas fitter earns in wages.

Somethings unfair.

Keep the registration for working for money, but bring course fees right down to about £200 all in.

Make it easy for DIYers in their own homes to get their work tested for a reasonable fee by GaSafe.

I would like a few of those television reports to investigate course prices and what the government is doing about them.

Lets make it fair and stop the cowboys, not dearer and perhaps make more cowboys.

 

[newbie1]

while initial training and registration is expensive most places will offer renewal of core plus four elements for around 800-1000 at most so i would dissagree about bringing courses down to 200.00 is unrealistic
initial training is essential and takes a lot longer for someone to fully understand not just rules but demonstrate practical knowledge
these people are cowboys because in life there are people who just dont want to conform to the rules and want to allways try and pull a fast one and resent paying anyone because they have the opinion that they are great and dont need to prove how good they are
the real answer to this is not to make things easier to pass but to prosecute fully the illegal gas workers and that includes the ones who have passed and are doing shocking work
ie flues passing through air bricks and no sealing of airbrick or flue
if someone wants to buy cannabis the law says no so you either enforce it or let people buy it openly and it becomes easy so more people say oh ill have some of that

and bernie it costs a bit more than 3 grand and one year to come out of uni with anything
try 3years at upwards of 5k a year if your lucky and 4 years for a doctor
thats based on eating ryvita for 36 months
same with gas its not an easy or cheap route to become qualified but if you say o thats easy any tom dick or harry will have a bash

 

[david williams]

any tom dick and harry is doing it ,but goverment is not intrested in doing any thing as that eats into the money they have taken off of you.

 

[bobpape]

It was mentioned at the start of the program that there were 20 gas related deaths
per year in the UK.
But failed to connect the number to the illegal operatives which suggests the gas related deaths are caused by registered operatives,

 

[stevetheplumber]

It was mentioned at the start of the program that there were 20 gas related deaths
per year in the UK.
But failed to connect the number to the illegal operatives which suggests the gas related deaths are caused by registered operatives,

whilst on this subject is there anywhere you can see the numbers of CO death/incidents and details of said as ive often wondered if the figures include suicides
Also i always think we should know more details of incidents such as what type of appliance was invloved what the fault was
personally i think it should now be compulsory for all open flued appliances to be inspected yearly

 

[david williams]

they should be able to tell if works carried out by unregistered operatives but if they did it would proberly prove its not about safety but getting money off of you

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

Its not eady yet on iplayer but heres the link so keep checking

BBC iPlayer - Watchdog: 24/09/2009

 

[Bernie2]

How can making safety information expensive, be designed to be anything but money making.

The gas industry as a whole must make £Billions in profit, how come those at the sharp end who probably get the least out of it, seem to pay the most?

University fees where capped at £3,000 a year a doctor or lawyer is said to earn after four years about £100,000 a year.

The thing is £3000 a year divided by 52 = £58 a week x 2 weeks acs training = £116.

A gas fitter pays about £3,500 every five years, possibly plus time off.

CORGI charge so much because British Gas only wanted to pay the same as a single employer. But how much does the likes of British Gas make out of the industry in a year? Last year it was over £500 million.

There is plenty of money in the market for a cheap system of training and safety, if of course safety is the object of having Gas Regs.

Don't get me wrong I know there will always probably be cowboys regardless of what you do, but they would at least have less reasons to be one.

And lets be honest not paying out £3500 and risking a £5000 or more fine is not the same as paying out say £200 and risking a £5,000 fine.

But I sympathize with all the points made. Its just that Safety I feel should be the prime motive.

I don't know what the actual costs of setting a course up are, and I am not having a go at the course providers, unless of course they are ripping people off which isn't fair. I am more saying perhaps that there seems to be plenty of money in the gas market, for costs to be a bit more evenly spread and promote safety.

 

[bobpape]

I agree
The truth is no one is actually interested in safety, the course providers are simply taking advantage of the law in order to make money, and the pupils are doing the same
but with the added bonus of potentially cornering the market,
The hypocrisy is outstanding,

 

[Bernie2]

Hi! Bob,

Yes there might be a bit of "Lets make it exclusive and charge what we like!" about. Problem is the prices might rise that much few except the big players could afford it.

That would leave all the work for boiler manufacturers and utility companies if they haven't already got a big chunk of it.

And that does nobody any good.

We need markets to be open and training cheap to allow the little guy to trade and their operatives to gain a living.

Don't forget there are usually minimum gas training requirements to be met, before you can go and do an acs test.

In other words acs are only a test of what you should already know.

How you get the training is another matter. Although taking an acs should prove you know what your doing, so where you actually get your training from doesn't matter. A bit like learning to drive, it doesn't matter where you learn. Its the test decides whether you can drive or not.

 

[stevetheplumber]

first way to level the playing field would be to make the charge for registering per operative rather than registration plus a pittance per extra operative the big boys are getting it cheap