Risk of deadly gas blasts rising as cash-strapped UK homeowners skip checks

theguardian.com:

The risk of catastrophic gas blasts is being heightened by cash-strapped homeowners skipping checks for potentially deadly faults, safety experts have warned.

Cookers, fires and boilers left unchecked can cause leaks, which “lead to fires and explosions that cost lives and shatter neighbourhoods,” said Bob Kerr, the gas services director at Gas Safe Register.

The body, which operates under agreement with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), found that almost one in three householders will skip booking an annual gas safety check this year, due to the cost-of-living crisis. A boiler service costs about £80 while a gas safety check for three appliances costs about £60.

The warning comes as investigators concluded a gas leak from internal piping was responsible for huge explosion last Sunday at a house in Kingstanding, Birmingham that killed Doreen Rees-Bibb, 79, and critically injured a man.

The incident is the latest in a series of rare but devastating blasts in the past two years caused by faulty appliances or broken gas mains from Portsmouth to Yorkshire.

Four gas explosions that destroyed homes examined by the Guardian have been caused by defective appliances or canister supplies inside homes. Three more were caused by gas seeping into properties from cracked or corroded mains supply pipes, a problem that is being tackled by a national gas mains replacement programme, which has another 10 years to run.

The Birmingham blast adds to 12 other fatalities and 179 injuries caused by gas explosions and fires in Great Britain in the past five years, according to figures from the HSE. On average, there have been 31 blasts a year, often leaving communities and homeowners traumatised.

“There should be help for those struggling [to