New research has revealed that registered gas engineers have protected at least 68,000 homes from potentially deadly gas incidents in the last year.

The research, released today (15 September) to mark the start of Gas Safety Week, revealed that over half of engineers questioned (57%) found a dangerous gas boiler, cooker or fire in a customer's home that needed turning off immediately. Almost half of these dangerous appliances (45%) were attributed to the fact that people had failed to get their gas appliance regularly serviced.

Gas Safe Register's own inspections of over 120,000 homes in the past four years found unsafe gas appliances lurking in one in six homes - the equivalent of 4.28 million households. During the same time period, the Register has carried out over 3,000 site investigations of illegal gas work, of which three in five were unsafe and one in five (19%) were so dangerous that the gas appliance had to be switched off immediately.

In addition, the UK Gas Distribution Networks (National Grid plc, Northern Gas Networks, Scotia Gas Networks and Wales & West Utilities) found over 70,000 unsafe gas appliances at emergency callouts attending in the last year.

Gas Safe Register's data has identified which areas across the country are most at risk. Birmingham has been named the most unsafe, with a third (32%) of all homes found to have an unsafe gas appliance. Other dangerous cities include Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Norwich, Ipswich, Coventry, Milton Keynes, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

During Gas Safety Week (15 to 21 September), Gas Safe Register is celebrating the work of registered engineers and all they do to keep Britain gas safe, by touring the country with local Fire and Rescue Services to raise the profile of registered engineers.

Russell Krämer, chief executive for Gas Safe Register, said: "After listening to our engineers tell us about the life-threatening incidents they regularly prevent, it's surprising there haven't been more fatalities.

It shows what a great job registered engineers do, but at the same time, we're reminding the public that they have an important role to play in gas safety too. This week, we want to encourage people to regularly get their gas appliances safety checked by a registered engineer."

Last year, Gas Safe Register launched the first interactive gas map at www.staygassafe.co.uk

Mr Krämer continued: "We saw over 150,000 people use the gas map in the last year, and many signed up to the reminder service. We hope to see thousands more use these tools this year with the expectation of it driving more business as it encourages people to hire qualified engineers."

You can pledge your support to Gas Safety Week at www.gassafetyweek.co.uk

You can pledge your support to Gas Safety Week at www.gassafetyweek.co.uk