According to recent research by the company, Gas Safe Register, the successor to Corgi, up to 100,000 gas cookers and hobs are installed illegally every year by fitters who lack the necessary skills or qualifications to work with gas.

GSR carried out interviews with 427 gas workers and discovered that 95% were fully or partially qualified to work with gas appliances. Nearly 40% of the workers subcontracted out their work, so said they didn’t need to be registered themselves and 7% didn’t bother to check whether the person they were subcontracting was registered.

It may not sound like many, but this amounts to unqualified workers carrying out up to 250,000 gas jobs, with pipework, hobs or cookers, per year. If that wasn’t enough, there are believed to be an additional 7,500 ‘hard core’ illegal gas fitters operating in the UK.

Although it may be tempting to choose a gas worker that’s cheaper than others, it’s essential to always use a registered Gas Safe engineer for work in your rental properties. If an illegal worker carried out changes or installations and failed to it properly, you could be putting the lives of your tenants at serious risk.

As a landlord, it’s always advisable to have a list of tradesmen handy for those emergency moments. If you’re using a lettings company, then they’ll handle this side of things for you, but it’s still useful to have a back-up list of your own, just in case.

If you’re unsure about the legality of a gas tradesperson, then you can always check the engineer’s Gas Safe Register ID card to confirm that they really are qualified to carry out the work.