Gas Safety In The Home - Is Your House Safe?

Ignoring Gas Safety Can Be Deadly!

Many people have no idea about or ignore the importance of gas safety in the home and this can be deadly! With some knowledge and taking some simple steps to ensure your home is safe, could save you and your family's life. The following are some gas safety tips.

Always use a gas safe registered engineer to carry out work on your gas appliances. Never, ever attempt to fit, fix or move a gas appliance yourself. It is illegal for you to do so and you could cause serious harm to yourself and others. It may save you some money, but it could cost you your life. Do not allow anybody else to work on your gas appliances. Even if they say that they have worked with gas before or have even been a registered engineer in the past. Apart from the fact that you will both be breaking the law, gas safety regulations may have change since he was registered last and the person may not be aware of this.

Have your appliances checked and serviced annually by a gas safe registered engineer. This could detect if there is any carbon monoxide leaking in your home. Having an annual check and service will also help your appliance to run efficiently, preventing breakdowns which cost money and are can be a huge inconvenience to you.

Do not block air vents, flues and chimneys. These allow gas to escape from your home, so always keep them clear. If you share a flue, why not share the responsibly of getting them checked every year to make sure that gas can escape from them.

When the engineer arrives, ask him to produce his card. All gas safe registered engineers should carry their card at all times. If they do not show their card, do not be afraid to ask to see it. On the card there will be a photo of the engineer, his licence number, a list of appliances he is qualified to work on and the expiry date of the card. If you are unsure of anything on the card, ask the engineer or phone gas safe register.

If you are a tenant, ask to see the gas safety record. Your landlord must, by law, have the gas appliances checked by a gas safe registered engineer every year and issue you with a copy of the record.

If there is a problem with a gas appliance, there could be carbon monoxide fumes leaking into your home. Carbon monoxide has no colour, smell or taste. Without a detector, you would never know this deadly gas is in your home. If you feel drowsy, develop headaches, feel nauseous, or out of breath, it may be because of carbon monoxide poisoning. Turn off your gas appliance, open the windows and contact a doctor straight away. You then need to get a registered engineer to check your gas appliances.

Have an audible carbon monoxide fitted in your home. You can buy one in most superstores and they don't cost a fortune. Having one can save your life by alerting you to the presence of carbon monoxide fumes in your home.

If you know or suspect that someone is working with gas illegally, report them to the Gas safe register immediately. They could cause serious injury even death!

Steven Fox is from Fox Plumbing Swansea

The top 5 reasons why people choose Fox Plumbing & Heating in Swansea are: -the service you dream for -experience matters -a habit of reliability -Free quotations -it's all about you!

Fox Plumbing & Heating serve the Swansea, Gower, Llanelli, Neath, Port Talbot & Ammanford area for plumbing, gas & heating. For more information go to http://foxplumbingswansea.co.uk/

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Decluttering a House When You Need Help!

Some of us just need outside help when decluttering a house. Pre-planning how to organize our home is simply beyond our time, skill and talent levels. We need people!

Here are 3 places to find people to help whenever you feel stymied. True, it helps to read a good book, but sometimes you need people alongside to implement it all.

Since motivation is critical, we've added 4 tips for jump-starting and maintaining your enthusiasm whenever you feel bogged down or overwhelmed.

Jump-Starting Motivation

Probably the trickiest part of decluttering a house is obtaining and maintaining enthusiasm to tackle clutter. Here's 3 of the more creative tips people have found that force you into action.

Plan a party- Nothing puts you into cleaning mode like the thought of friends or family who are about to visit your home. Evaluate just how long you think it will take to get everything in order and then plan a barbecue or nice dinner party.

Draw enthusiasm from Spring and Fall- The changing of the seasons brings nicer temperatures and the urge to open all the windows. Changing seasons outside can stimulate you to change your surroundings inside, too.

Plan a Yard Sale- Do you need a little extra money as well as a little help decluttering a house? When the yard sale is over, donate the leftovers! Yes yard sales work, but a possible problem is that you need to group and store the stuff until the time arrives.

Maintaining Motivation. The Right Program

True, those 3 tips above will jump-start your motivation, but you actually need the right program to maintain your motivation.

We can't discuss programs here at length, but in general the best should be a system that delivers quick and visible success at each step of its procedure. Enthusiasm feeds off immediate and visible rewards.

But what if you don't have the right system and actually need outside advice? What if you don't even know where to start, for instance? Then, you need people who can provide strategy and the hands to help do the work.

1. Use A Pro for Only One Day

If your budget is tight, you can still use a sympathetic professional organizer for only one day to tailor a solution for just one room or site. Then for free you can take the techniques and solutions you've learned there and apply them to your other spaces. In this way, you'll find that less money brings you more.

The top 6 problems the pro's can help you solve are: "too much clutter, general disorganization, difficulty determining what to keep and/or discard, difficulty finding things, and selling a home or moving."

[Source: NAPO: National Association of Professional Organizers, 2009 Member Survey, 06/30/2009].

You can find and contact a professional through word of mouth, newspaper, yellow pages, or on the web. NAPO is a nationally respected source. Make a list, get references and check out what the pro's charge first. Ask whether or not they are more geared to organizing homes or businesses.

2. Ask a Candid Friend for Help

Talk to your best friend about making the decisions needed to declutter your home. Having a disinterested third party can help you put those old 8-track cassettes you have kept for decades into perspective. Even if your friend isn't very organized, he or she won't be so emotionally tied to the item.

3. Team Declutter

Gail and David Newton, who run the firm, Your House in Order, in Greeley, Colorado, offer this tip. Locate a couple of friends with a similar need for getting their homes in order themselves.

As long as your goals are the same, you and your friends can swap weekends to declutter and organize the others' houses. It's faster and easier. Final say, of course, belongs to the one who owns the house.

Final Thoughts:

If you need a little outside help for a big project such as decluttering a house, there's a variety of places to find it. A pro, a friend, or a team of friends with mutual needs will provide advice, support and the hands to get it done. It could change your life and you'll feel good about your home.

Steve B. Brown, Ph.D., is a retired research professor. Steve started his website to be a free resource for others who wanted to feature speed and simplicity when decluttering and organizing their homes.

Want to learn more about getting outside declutter help? Visit my website at http://www.cluttercontrolguide.com/ for tips and guidelines on decluttering and organizing your home as fast as is possible.

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