Scrappage scheme plea for open flue boilers
The Gas Safety Trust has called for a revised
Boiler Scrappage Scheme to tackle old, open flue boilers, after these
figured prominently in cases of carbon monoxide poisoning.
This follows the publication of the latest Downstream Incident
Data Report covering accidental CO incidents in Great Britain involving
the use of natural gas and piped LPG in the home.
This covered
the period from 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 which showed 29 incidents
reported via RIDDOR, resulting in 62 non-fatal casualties and two
deaths, one of which was attributed to an old, open flued, floor
standing boiler that had not been serviced for some time.
The
report states that using an open flued boiler increased the risk of
being involved in a RIDDOR reportable incident by a factor of four,
compared to a room-sealed boiler.
The Gas Safety Trust has made a
number of recommendations to tackle CO poisoning issues, including
performance measurement on open flued boilers and warm air units within
landlord safety checks; the fitting of CO alarms; promotion of regular
servicing of appliances.
Gas Safety Trust chairman Chris Bielby
said the 2010 Boiler Scrappage Scheme helped 118,000 households in
England benefit from installing more energy efficient and safer heating
appliances.
“As a result of the findings of this report, the Gas
Safety Trust is calling on the Government to repeat this scheme, not
only to make households in the UK safer but also to help us meet our
energy efficiency targets.
“I will be writing to Amber Rudd MP,
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Climate Change, to seek a
meeting to discuss this in more detail,” he said.
Mr Bielby also spoke at yesterday’s Parliamentary launch of this year’s Gas Safety Week, which begins on Monday.
