Person on Gas Safe certificate isn’t who installed our boiler

Lizmoretti

We recently had a new boiler installed by a local company. The owner of the company came to do the quote and then two employees/contractors came to do the work.

The gas safe certificate has the name of someone totally different based in a different town to that of the company.  It clearly says “Work carried out by: John Smith” but no-one by that name ever came to our property.

Should this be a concern?

tacpot12

Yes, because you have no way to be sure that the work was done correctly. I would get the work inspected by another gas engineer. I would explain to them that you are concerned. If they find any faults, I would get them to provide you with a list of the faults that they have found. Ask that that the list confirms how whether each fault is so dangerous that the boiler should not be used. If you have Home Insurance, check to see if you have Legal Expenses cover as part of the policy. If you do, call the Legal Helpline provided by the policy to ask for advice before contacting the company. They will tell you what to do and say in any communication with the company, and may ultimaitely represent you in court to recover the cost of any repair work).  

I expect that you will be advice to contact the company to give them the option to fix the faults, and you should expect them to prioritise any that are dangerous as you may not be able to use the boiler until they are fixed.

If they won't fix the problems, you should pay your engineer who inspected the work to fix the problems, and send the bill to the company. Once this is all sorted, I would suggest you call the Gas Safe Register and ask them to investigate 'John Smith' in case he is in the habit of signing off work unseen. 

Eldi_Dos

Could it be a clerical error and someone else's certificate put in your envelope.
Do the details on certificate tally up with your installation.

HampshireH

Lizmoretti said:

We recently had a new boiler installed by a local company. The owner of the company came to do the quote and then two employees/contractors came to do the work.

The gas safe certificate has the name of someone totally different based in a different town to that of the company.  It clearly says “Work carried out by: John Smith” but no-one by that name ever came to our property.

Should this be a concern?

Go back and ask for the correct one. / Get them back out to do one

Lizmoretti

Eldi_Dos said:

Could it be a clerical error and someone else's certificate put in your envelope.
Do the details on certificate tally up with your installation.

It’s our name/address.  I’ve contacted the company to see if there’s an error - no reply yet. 

Lizmoretti

@tacpot12 - Thanks for the advice.  This has taken a turn as I’ve looked further into the person who did the install and the gas safe website says they’re not certified to do LPG (their website says they do LPG and I have emails/texts that show they knew it was LPG before I contracted them).

But oddly, even the “John Smith” who is on our certificate isn’t able to do LPG, so it’s not like they’re trying to sign off work they’re not certified to do.

Can another engineer check and sign-off the work, or will it have to be torn out and re-installed?

DanDare999

Lizmoretti said:

@tacpot12 - Thanks for the advice.  This has taken a turn as I’ve looked further into the person who did the install and the gas safe website says they’re not certified to do LPG (their website says they do LPG and I have emails/texts that show they knew it was LPG before I contracted them).

But oddly, even the “John Smith” who is on our certificate isn’t able to do LPG, so it’s not like they’re trying to sign off work they’re not certified to do.

Can another engineer check and sign-off the work, or will it have to be torn out and re-installed?

They'd be able to check the installation and issue a safety certificate but not one for installing it. 

macman

Have you contacted John Smith to tell him that someone is using his GSR reg details to do illegal installs?

MikeJXE

My son is a gas safe plumber and he thinks this is happening often. A none registered plumber (cheaper) does the job and a gas safe steps in, checks it and writesit off, the same is happening for electrical works. For gas check the Gas Safe Register on line to be sure they are gas safe 

Alanp

The boiler guarantee may also be void..

ratrace

What did you pay? for this job