The Gas Saga

I promised to tell you about our gas problems. When we entered the house before we actually moved in, we thought we could smell gas. So the second time I called the gas emergency service. The man came, and in his normal helpful way said, "You've got a leak," turned the gas off and walked out with a smile on his face.

So we called in a gas engineer from the yellow pages who took a long time but in the end found a leak. A joint had not been soldered properly and he said he had to report it to Gas Safe. That is the new body which has replaced Corgi. He said they would send someone round to inspect, then we could have the gas connected.

A day or so later the person dealing with things on behalf of the church telephoned Gas Safe to ask why he'd not heard and was told as they didn't have his telephone number, they had written and he'd have to wait for the letter. It duly came and told us to phone up to make an appointment (!?!) Why couldn't the woman have made the appointment when he spoke to her? We haven't got an answer to that one.

The earliest they could do was a fortnight later, which meant we would be without gas for two weeks - no hot water, heating or cooking. But that wasn't their problem they said, their inspectors are fully booked up. After I (unusually for me) got rather upset over the phone, she found out that another inspector could do it a few days earlier.

It was all a bit of a storm in a teacup, and the problems were rectified the same day. Except that there seemed to be another leak. This one was under the concrete floor, in a pipe that was laid when the house was built. So a few days later, a new gas pipe was laid to the kitchcen and all was well.

So, another letter of complaint, this one about how Gas Safe handled things. I mentioned Gas Safe to another gas engineer, who said, "They are a shambles. They are worse than Corgi." His words, not mine!