Islands in the stream

Being an inspector in Northern Ireland comes with a role and responsibilities that take in everything from inspecting registered businesses to supporting HSENI to working with environmental health officers. Registered Gas Engineer caught up with Chris White-Overton to find out what’s involved.

I’m a Jack of all trades over here,” says Chris. The inspector, who has been with the Register for four years, deals with small businesses, large businesses, and illegal investigations, as well as working with HSENI on RIDDORs, complaints relating to gas and providing the Executive with technical help on site when needed.

He and his inspector colleague Shaun Smyth look after Northern Ireland and its 892 Gas Safe registered businesses between them. But that’s not all of it: the two of them also cover the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey.

All that means a fair bit of travel and a lot of organisation. On top of his own wide patch around the greater Belfast area, Chris goes to the Isle of Man for a week at a time four times a year, as well as seeing registered businesses in Guernsey and Jersey regularly.

Mains (its local term over here) natural gas came later in Northern Ireland than to the mainland; the network started in 1996 and is still expanding. It also has a slightly higher calorific value. “That doesn’t affect combustion but we use a slightly different value for gasrating calculations,” says Chris.

“In England, it’s generally 10.76 but here it varies between 11.1 and 11.4. The heat input figure on the data badge is generally worked out using 10.76, but we use the adjusted figure and it can appear that the appliance is overgassed – but it’s not, it’s just that we use the higher figure.

Under medium pressure

“The other main difference is that our network is predominantly medium-pressure supply as opposed to lower pressure, so we use a different process and procedure for tightness testing*.

“Currently around one-third of the homes in Northern Ireland are on the natural gas network. The others are mostly on oil, with some LPG in more rural locations, and there’s certainly a lot more LPG than on the mainland.”

The gas may be slightly different but gas engineers need to achieve the same competences and go through the same training and ACS as their colleagues on the mainland. And when it comes to being inspected, they have the same worries. “There can be a certain fear, which is something I try and help them overcome,” says Chris.

“No one looks forward to it but afterwards many feel better and they’re glad it’s happened. There can be a misconception that we’re trying to trip you up but that’s obviously not the case.”

He knows that nerves can sometimes be apparent too. “When I see that, I say that nerves aren’t a bad thing because it means you care. A huge majority of gas engineers do work safely.”

Chris and Shaun work closely with HSENI too, supporting the Executive with RIDDORs and complaints and providing technical assistance on site.

“We also work closely with environmental health officers (EHOs): right now we’re checking on restaurants, making sure appliances have been serviced and they have gas safety records.

We’ve carried out training with EHOs on how to rate a gas safety record and ensure appliances are recorded, what to look out for, alarm bells, how to check an operative on the Register and that they have the required ACS.”

Right place, right time Chris knows how engineers feel about being inspected. He used to be a gas engineer himself, and was at a major boiler company for 11 years before he joined. “I was a service engineer in the renewables team but I was actually doing commercial, domestic and renewables as well as helping with system design and commissioning.

“But the Register was something I’d been interested in since day dot, especially the role it plays in the industry. Gas safety was something that I always took seriously. A friend sent me the job ad as a bit of a joke but it was right up my street. So I put my CV in, got an interview, was offered the job and the rest is history. I was in the right place at the right time.”

Inspectors have to hold many ACS qualifications and renew them in the same way as gas engineers. And although Chris was

892 already highly qualified, he had to do a whole lot more. “I had a few of the commercial ACS but not all of them, and not all the domestic ones either. I had to do warm air heating, which had been common in England many years ago, but it’s never been here; we’ve never seen or heard of it, so I didn’t have it.”

He has it now, along with many other qualifications. “As part of our training and induction, we have to go through 80-90 training packages and assessments over three months. It was quite interesting to learn something new.

“Training is a massive part of any inspector’s duty, as well as the importance of keeping up to date with regulations and requirements. Some training has to be renewed annually and some every two years. And we have to do our ACS every five years too.”

With such a varied role, it’s hard to imagine that Chris has much downtime, but he does manage to fit in the occasional round of golf and fishing in the summer around his home in County Down – only when he’s not spending time with his two young daughters. ■ * See also, Tightness testing in Northern Ireland, overleaf.