Plumbing and Heating Pilot Scheme

Plumbers and Heating Engineers work in many different properties often following on from other work that has been carried out previous by a plumber or heating engineer. This situation can lead to the discovery of faulty and defective work on wet pipes and gas work, bathroom and kitchen installation also suffer from this problem. As policy stands at the moment plumbers and heating engineers have no official governing body to report to, this defective work therefore can’t be traced back to the tradesman or company responsible for carrying out the plumbing or heating work.

As a customer you can feel confident in the knowledge that you can report defective and un-safe work to several governing bodies such as APHC, CHAS, CIPHE, Safe Contractor Approved and Gas Safe Register amongst others. These companies can be of great use to you as a consumer for two key reasons. One, you are able to employ a plumber or heating engineer that carry an official accreditation, we have spoken about this in a previous blog article ‘Does Your Plumber Have the Right Accreditations?’. Two, you can report any defective work to these governing bodies when a tradesman is accredited to them. This will cover the work they have carried out and making them liable for any repairs.

Now APHC and Seven Trent Water are starting a pilot scheme to tackle this problem and who to report defective work too. Putting the power of safe work back into the tradesmen’s hands so they can report any faulty work if they come across it. Plumbers and heating engineers can file a defective work report to Seven Trent Water (as this is where the pilot scheme is been tested). Upon receiving this report Seven Trent Water will go assess and test the defective work and act as they see fit to comply with the correct regulations and practice of work.

If this scheme gets implemented it will become a very effective method of combatting the companies and tradesmen that breach the requirements of the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulation 1999. At Plumbcare.com we are all in favour of the new scheme, rolling out the scheme across the UK will start cracking down on the poor work carried out that we see when working in homes across Yorkshire.