As many as 1.7 million small and medium-sized enterprises could be failing to adhere to legal health and safety requirements surrounding gas appliances, research by British Gas revealed. The gas and electricity supplier’s study found that 52% of people in senior management positions or higher, who are responsible for facilities or energy management, and whose…
Living with other people is a game of constant compromise. Even our nearest and dearest can drive us up the wall when we are in close proximity to them for a long period of time. And with energy prices rising constantly, utility consumption can be a major issue in the relationship between bill-payers and other…
Less than half of all Brits own a Carbon Monoxide detector, research from HomeServe Heating has revealed. The organisation discovered that, although CO kills approximately 50 people in this country alone every year and hospitalises thousands more, the public’s knowledge about this ‘silent killer’ is hazy. HomeServe Heating found that one-sixth of Brits do not…
Scottish Power has struggled to rank highly for customer service issues; in a recent Which? survey of the UK’s 100 biggest brands’ customer service provisions, Scottish Power came 99th, only beaten by rival Big Six energy firm Npower. So it’s no surprise that the Telegraph has today asked, “Why is Scottish Power’s boiler service so…
An electrical appliance led to a fire in Colby. The Isle of Man Fire and Rescue Service went to the property at 13:53 on September 18th after learning that an as-yet-unnamed appliance had caught fire in the front room of the household. Responders from Port Erin spotted the overheating appliance, isolated it, and then removed…
A self-employed builder from Ipswich’s Kesgrave region was handed a suspended prison sentence after illegally removing a gas boiler. ‘Immediately dangerous’ In a hearing yesterday (September 30th), Ipswich Crown Court heard that on October 11th 2012, 49-year-old Keith Vickerstaff, of Wainwright Way, had left a gas supply pipe uncapped and open after taking the boiler…
A home improvement company’s partners have been fined after a woman and her foster children were potentially exposed to fatal carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of inappropriate building work. Gas Safety breach Philip Thomas and Janusz Wojcik, partners of Lochaber Street, Cardiff-based firm P Thomas and J Building Home improvement Specialists, each admitted breaching…
Have you ever complained to an energy company? Were you pleased with the way that your complaint was handled? If you feel like a gas and electricity supplier has fobbed off a complaint you have made, then you’re not alone – a study commissioned by Ofgem found that 57% of domestic energy consumers and 52%…
A plumbing and heating company and two of its self-employed contractors have been prosecuted in a Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court hearing after the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated a number of faults in gas appliances the firm had installed. DSI Plumbing and Heating, of Fawley’s The Square, admitted to two breaches of the Health and…
Families in Essex are worrying that broken boilers could have made their children ill. The Essex Chronicle reports that households in Arnhem Road, Melbourne, were left without hot water and central heating for a week after experts classed their boilers as ‘immediately dangerous’. Charitable housing organisation CHP replaced the private tenants’ boilers, but residents are…
