If you’re a mobile caterer you’ll already appreciate the importance of LPG safety, but you might have noticed that it can be tricky to find a gas engineer that you trust. Some gas engineers have been known to bend the rules (so we’ll clear those rules up for you quickly now).

What the law says (The Gas Safety (Installation & Use) Regulations 1998)

1. You must have all gas installation work done by a Gas Safe registered engineer, whether the work is domestic or commercial
2. Mobile caterers must only use Gas Safe engineers who have mobile catering qualifications to work on their appliances (i.e. they can’t only be qualified to work on domestic appliances)
3. Gas engineers must be qualified in the field and product that they are working on. For example, to sign off an LPG griddle the engineer needs to be qualified in “Mobile Catering Range Cookers LPG”. Whereas, if the appliance is a range cooker inside a kitchen that runs of natural gas then the qualification would need to be “Commercial Catering Range Cookers NG”
4. You must have your appliances serviced at least annually and retain a gas certificate as proof. Some engineers will only issue certificates for six months if they consider your equipment to be at high risk of becoming unsafe through use. Gazebo traders’ equipment tends to be particularly high risk due to the nature of being connected and disconnected regularly

What qualifications could an engineer have?

How do you know if the engineer is qualified?

It’s really easy to check online, on the Gas Safe register, searching by name or area.

When you have selected an individual engineer, look for ‘catering’ under ‘non-domestic area of work’ and then search within that section to see if the engineer has the appropriate mobile catering ‘tickets’ (qualifications) to work on your appliances. Remember that has to include for each type of appliance.

Where you can find NCASS gas engineer members?

To avoid hiring bogus engineers like these, just ask NCASS first. To find the list of NCASS gas engineers, visit our members-only gas engineer page. Once there you can search for an engineer by area – just remember to make sure that they’re qualified to work on the specific pieces of equipment that you need serviced.

What NCASS says about gas engineers for mobile caterers

At NCASS we hope that all mobile caterers will be able to find a Gas Safe engineer that they can trust to work on their appliances time after time. That’s why we have produced our very own list of tried, tested and trusted gas engineers, available to view and get contact details for in your control panel.

All of our engineers have been personally recommended by caterers who have already had a great experience with them, and they all have various mobile catering qualifications.

When you come to choose your engineer from our list, all you need to do is make sure they have the qualification in the specific appliance you need testing before you ask them to come to site.

Our special relationship with each of our engineers means that you can always come back to us if you ever have a problem with any of them, and we’ll do our best to sort things out quickly and amicably.

Zac Dalton of Chai’s Thai recently wrote to us saying

“The engineer we used last year wasn’t with NCASS and his work was of a poor standard, but Chris put right what was wrong, ordered new parts and fitted them both quickly and efficiently. We feel a lot safer knowing that the work was done to a good standard by someone who knows what they are doing. We’ll be using Chris for all of our future gas work and would recommend anyone in our area to use him.”

Have you had work done by an unqualified engineer?

If your gas installations have been serviced by an engineer who doesn’t have the appropriate qualifications, sadly your gas certificate will be invalid, and that could lead to legal trouble if you ever had an accident involving gas.

Take a look at the Gas Safe register, using the advanced tools, to make sure that the engineer you used was ok and your certificate is valid. If you do need to have your equipment re-serviced (or are looking to get them looked at anyway), remember to head to www.ncass.org.uk first.