Gas Appliance Servicing – Why Bother?

There are three main reasons why you should have your gas appliances serviced.  These are safety, reliability, and financial benefits.

Safety – Many people are aware of carbon monoxide as a killer.  Every year in the UK around 30 people die from gas related incidents.  About 20% of these deaths are due to gas explosions and related fires.  The remainder however are attributable to the silent invisible killer, carbon monoxide. Regular servicing helps to keep your appliances running and burning properly, and provide peace of mind.

Reliability – Often when servicing gas appliances we find faults which have not developed far enough to cause a problem. If these faults were not remedied during servicing they would undoubtedly lead to a breakdown.  Similarly some of the tasks during servicing are “preventative maintenance” which actively prevents faults occurring in the future.  While we cannot guarantee you will never have a breakdown, the likelihood is greatly reduced.

Open flues and chimneys, typically on gas fires and some boilers, work every hour of every day, pulling air (and dust) through the appliances, even when they are switched off.  If you do nothing to deal with this you will have problems.

Financial Benefits – Many people do not immediately link paying for a gas appliance service with financial benefits. 

Consider these facts:

• Regularly serviced appliances run more efficiently and so cost less to run.  You may even recoup the cost of the servicing in fuel savings alone.  For example, a boiler heat exchanger is made of very thin material, designed to transfer heat from the gas flame to the water. If this is even a little dirty, a lot of the heat is not transferred, but instead goes out the flue.  Good for global warming, but not your fuel budget!
   

• As reliability increases, the cost of repairs and breakdowns decrease.  As well as avoiding some repairs completely, other repair costs will be minimised by catching faults early.
   

• The life of any appliance will be extended if it is running properly.

In line with industry accepted and proven standards, and all appliance manufacturer’s instructions, 1st Call Gas and Electric Ltd recommend gas appliances are serviced annually.

Gas Appliance Servicing
Landords - from £30 each - Details
General Public - Boilers and Fires - from £55 each - Details

If you need more information, or would like to arrange for any of our services, please contact us.