A moment that every homeowner dreads is when they are near their boiler and they smell a distinctive foul odour which means they need to call for an emergency repair immediately.
This smell, known as mercaptan, is added to natural gas specifically to make it easier to detect a gas leak and ensure you can act quickly to protect yourself, your loved ones and your neighbours.
The quicker you act, the quicker you can reduce the danger with the help of a gas safe engineer.
The first step is ventilation; open all doors and windows around your boiler and get fresh air immediately. Whilst the risk of fire or explosion is a major part of the emergency, carbon monoxide can also be extremely dangerous.
Next, turn off the gas emergency shut-off valve at the gas meter if you have access to it. This is not always the case and if it is in a basement or cellar location it may be more dangerous to switch it off.
Turn off all naked flames in the house, including candles and cooking stoves, do not light a cigarette and do not activate any electrical switches. Light switches can sometimes create enough of a spark to ignite natural gas.
Once this is done, contact our emergency line or the 24-hour National Gas Emergency Hotline to ensure a gas safe engineer can quickly reach your destination to safely fix the issue.
The emergency operative will fix the issue, identify the cause and advise, if one is not there already, that emergency repairs should be made to your boiler, appliance or pipework, depending on the cause of the issue.
Do not turn the gas supply on again until it has been confirmed safe by the engineer.
This is the whole emergency process, but if you are feeling lightheaded, sick or nauseous, visit your GP or go to hospital immediately, as you may have been exposed to carbon monoxide.