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As a landlord, it should be your utmost priority to protect your tenants from any possible hazards associated with gas leakage. In addition, it is also your legal duty to do everything to save your tenants from gas leakage, smoke, and fire. To do that, there are some things you must ensure.

You have to make sure that there is no gas leakage in the pipelines, gas appliances are working properly, and there must be smoke and fire alarms installed on the property. To ensure the above things you need to properly examine your property by a registered gas safety company and obtain a gas safety certification.

The inspection must be done before letting your property out to the tenants, as it is a matter of safety directly connected to their lives. In this blog, we will discuss the steps that landlords and tenants must take to ensure their safety from possible fire hazards:

Fire Safety: The Landlord’s Responsibilities

Before letting out your property to a tenant as a landlord, you must complete all the safety checks from your end which ensures fire safety. Let’s discuss those safety checks in detail.

Regular Inspections

Gas leakage is the most common reason in a household responsible for fire. So, to keep everyone safe you should first go after those leakages. Now those leakages are due to several reasons like rust in the pipelines, faulty components in the gas appliances, and poor fitting of gas valves, etc.

You can’t inspect the whole property in detail on your own, and it's also not a once-in-a-lifetime thing. So, you must employ a gas safety company to do these things for you. They will look for any possible leakage from the main gas pipeline to your burner in the kitchen.

They have the right skill set and the equipment to ensure no gas leakage or anything that can cause a fire. On the other hand, you can get hassle-free rescheduling of your next inspection.

Installation of Smoke/Fire Alarms and CO (Carbon monoxide) Detectors

There must be smoke and fire alarms on your property, especially in the key areas like bedrooms and living rooms. They must be in a proper working order and checked regularly if they are working. Besides, you also need to install CO detectors on your property as CO is a silent killer which is highly flammable in addition to being poisonous. CO can easily cause a fire, and it must be detected timely.

The biggest problem with CO is its colourless and odourless nature, making it invisible. But, if a CO detector is installed in your home, it can detect the abnormal level of CO in the air and let you save everyone’s lives.

Installation of Fire Extinguishers

As a landlord, you must take all the steps to keep fire hazards from happening. But once it has happened, it’s time to stop it from spreading. You need to install fire extinguishers everywhere in your house like bedrooms, hallways, and especially in the kitchen area to deal with emergencies.

Safe Exits

In the case of fire, the first rational thing one can do is stop it from spreading by using fire blankets and extinguishers. But, if at some point while doing it the fire is going out of hand then one has to just go for evacuation. For evacuation, there must be a proper safe exit which is the direct responsibility of the landlord. So, as a landlord, you must ensure you have provided enough safe exits from the house in case of fire or any possible hazard.

Educating Your Tenants

When you are letting out your property to new tenants, you must educate them about the fire safety techniques. Tell them about all the safe exit locations and how to evacuate through them in case of fire. Most importantly make sure that your tenants can use the fire safety equipment.

The Tenant’s Guide to Fire Safety

In addition to the landlord’s fire safety responsibilities, there are some advice for tenants. Here is a quick rundown of the responsibilities of tenants for ensuring fire safety:

Avoid Indoor Smoking

Indoor smoking is also one of the very common causes of fire not only in houses but even in commercial buildings as well. It is important to avoid smoking inside your bedrooms and living rooms instead always smoke in an outside smoke area.

Safety from Flammable Materials

Look for any flammable items in your house like sprays, cleaners, paints, LPG cylinders, etc. If there are any always keep them in a safe location like a ventilated room. Do not smoke and avoid any activity involving fire close to that room.

Follow Cautions

Always follow the cautions written on the appliances about the standard use by the manufacturer. Overusing appliances like ovens, vacuum cleaners, and dishwashers can cause heat, leading to a short circuit. Furthermore, there are also some appliances that need specific wiring and high voltage requirements. So, it’s better to seek help from a specialised person.

Do Your Own Due-diligence

It’s advisable not to always completely rely on the landlord regarding fire safety. Instead go for a self-inspection from your end and look for any possible leakage. You should also check the certificates/documents to see whether they are authorised and the most recent inspection date.

On the other hand, inspect the fire safety equipment as if it is working. Test the fire and smoke alarms and report anything dangerous to your landlord or relevant authorities.

Tenant’s Insurance

It’s not something that directly stops fire from happening, but it is also very important. If things didn’t go well and you couldn’t handle the fire, you would end up with burnt furniture and losing important stuff. To avoid that you should think ahead and get yourself fire safety insurance. So, in that situation, you have at least a helping hand for you if any bad thing happens.

Wrapping It Up

Fire safety is a very important thing which is equally important to both landlords and tenants. It requires a sense of responsibility from both sides. For Example;

The landlords must ensure that each fire safety equipment is in proper working order while tenants must ensure they can use that equipment. Similarly, landlords may give tenants guidelines about using electrical and gas appliances safely, while tenants must ensure they stick with those guidelines.

So, as we can see efforts from both sides are needed to establish a safe environment and keep everyone safe from these deadly fire hazards.