Dear Colleague 

Please see information below being issued as an Urgent Safety Briefing by BT.

There have been several reported incidents of lightweight regulators leaking through the Gas Control valve in recent weeks, one of which resulted in minor burns to an engineer.

The Gas Equipment Testing Station (GETS) at Croydon has investigated the faulty items of equipment and identified the problem and precautions to be taken to ensure the lightweight regulators in the field are safe for continued use.

The action for all field engineers who use this kit is as follows:-

Connect the gas kit to the gas bottle.

Turn on the gas regulator and apply Solution Leak Detecting to all couplings. Check for any leaks.

Apply Solution Leak Detecting to the Gas Control Valve. Then holding it between the thumb & forefinger look and listen for escapes of gas while checking for both sideways and in and out movement. Any play in these areas may cause leaks.

Checking for any sideways movement is very important as it is this action that will ensure any possible leaks may be found.

All of these checks must be done BEFORE the torch is ignited.

Wipe off Solution Leak Detecting.

If no leaks are found and the regulator passes these tests it is safe to use.

Any leaking items must be taken out of use immediately and your local Mobile Tester contacted for a replacement. (Mobile Tester details may be found on the front page of the Esitest [e-YP] system via Gatekeeper)

The Gas Equipment Testing Station must also be contacted immediately to record data of any faults found and to enable supply of any necessary additional kits to the Mobile Testers.

GETS Telephone Number - 0208 686 9447.