Gas meter accessibility

tashlaar92

Hoping someone here can help as hours spent on Google haven't been very informative.
I'm looking to buy a house but in the property I like, the gas meter is in a small cupboard behind the steel spiral staircase so it's awkward to get to. It is possible to reach behind and open the door to read the meter but there's not a lot of room to actually get behind the staircase.
Would this be a illegal in terms of accessibility, ie. in case of emergency? And if so, would anybody know approximate estimates from energy suppliers for moving the meter?
Thank you in advance

[Deleted User]

You need to be able to get to the ECV, emergency control valve for a start. You should be able to reach it I presume in the event of a controlled gas escape.
The problem will crop up when the meter is due for its exchange when a meter fitter would be needing reasonable access to get to the meter unions etc.Most meter fitters will take one look lasting ten seconds and march out promptly if he can see he can t easily get to it and hopefully he will leave it to another fitter who is better at awkward to get at meters. If after many many visits, and a few years of access problems, possibly National Grid would put a safety order on the meter and cut the gas off ( the meter would have gone past its seal safety dates ) if the occupier refused to give proper access to the meter. It sounds like a structure has been built around the meter to make it hard to get at.Please don t get too upset at this because there are countless meters like this, mostly under modern kitchen units in corners where disassembly of these units are needed. Eventually the problems will have to be resolved and the occupier would have to either pay someone to allow access to the meter or a D.I.Y. job because I have heard it from a National Grid managers mouth " they will have to rip the kitchen unit out or we cut them off, its their choice "

MeterMan

At some point the meter and E.C.V would have been accessible, over time this has been built around to make the access inadequate. This is the responsibility of the homeowner and not the supplier or transporter.

The supplier wont move it for you, and the transporter wont move it for free.

But as Sacsquacco says, there are thousands of inaccessible meters.

As for your meter, only you have deemed it inaccessible. If you could post a broken link with a picture of it. I could tell you if the job is doable.