The back of the card

How we work

Why that is the question to ask

Working on a gas fitting or appliance without Gas Safe registration is a criminal offence, and public awareness of that is genuinely good: most people know to ask. What stops at the front of the card is the part that matters next. The reverse lists the specific categories of gas work and appliance types the individual engineer has demonstrated competence in, and those categories are narrower than the word registered suggests.

The practical effect is that an engineer can be entirely legitimate, fully registered, insured and competent — and still not qualified for the appliance in front of them. Domestic boilers, gas fires, cookers, warm air units, commercial catering appliances and LPG are separate competences. An engineer stepping outside their categories is doing unlawful work on the installation in your building with the greatest capacity to kill people, usually with the best of intentions and because the customer asked.

So the card comes out before work starts, the categories are published, and anything outside them goes to someone qualified rather than being attempted. The other non-negotiable is what happens when something is found to be dangerous. The industry unsafe situations procedure governs it: turn off and cap with permission, attach a warning notice, and where permission is refused in an immediately dangerous case, report it. An occupier who would rather keep using a dangerous fire is the one situation where we will not accommodate the customer.