The CO Research Trust has welcomed the Government’s latest response on domestic smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. The headline sounds like a new duty. For a landlord who already does the annual gas safety record (the old “CP12”) and follows the 2022 alarm rules, most of this is already on the job.
Two separate rules already apply in rented homes in England:
- The gas safety record. Every 12 months a Gas Safe engineer checks the appliances and flues the landlord provides. That paper is often still called a CP12. It is a combustion and flue check. It does not, by itself, create the legal duty to fit a carbon monoxide alarm.
- The Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm Regulations, tightened from 1 October 2022. Landlords must fit a working CO alarm in any room used as living accommodation that contains a fixed combustion appliance — gas boiler, gas fire, oil boiler, wood burner — other than a gas cooker. They must test it at the start of a tenancy.
So what has actually changed in this consultation response? Not the day-to-day visit. Ministers are still not putting gas cookers into the same alarm rule. Owner-occupiers in England still have no legal duty to fit an alarm, unlike the position in Scotland for homes with a carbon-burning appliance. The Trust is right that those gaps remain.
On a CP12 visit we already look for a working alarm in the room with the boiler or fire. If it is missing, out of date or in the wrong place, that goes on the record and we say so. The consultation does not replace that habit. An alarm is a warning. It is not a substitute for a service, a sound flue or a registered installer.
Owner-occupiers in Marlow are not waiting for a new English statute. A tested audible alarm and a boiler serviced in the last 12 months are still the pair that matters before winter.
Ask to see a current Gas Safe ID card before anyone works on the boiler, fire or cooker. If an alarm sounds, get everyone out and call 0800 111 999 if you suspect fumes or a leak.
To book the annual check, call 01628 901902.