Sean Patrick, East Coast Plumbing and Gas Ltd, believes portable gas heaters should be banned. Photo/Duncan Brown
Sean Patrick, East Coast Plumbing and Gas Ltd, believes portable gas heaters should be banned. Photo/Duncan Brown
Local plumbers are supporting a proposed ban on portable gas heaters in all residential properties due to the serious risks they pose to people's health and safety.
It comes after Master Plumbers CEO Greg Wallace voiced his concerns earlier this week and asked for the country to follow Canada, someUS states and parts of Australia who have already put bans in place.
Certified gas fitter and director at East Coast Plumbing and Gas Ltd, Sean Patrick, agreed that portable gas heaters are not safe for use inside houses.
"People don't understand the problems that are associated with it," he said. "It is very dangerous."
Portable gas heaters lack a flue or chimney to carry combustion products outside, causing carbon monoxide to become trapped inside the room. Often there won't be sufficient ventilation within the room to provide fresh air, Mr Patrick said.
Miles Nathan, owner, Cape Plumbing and Draining, Napier. Photo / Duncan Brown.
This "colourless and odourless gas" can result in asphyxiation and is a "silent killer", he added.
Rather than buying "cheap heat", the gas fitter recommended investing in proper, fixed heating; eg. a flued gas heater or log fire put in by an authorised installer or a heat pump.
"There's plenty of different options. It will cost money but it is not as bad as dying."
Cape plumbing and drainlaying owner Miles Nathan, said although they may be cheap to buy, "if someone's life is taken, how much does that cost?"
He believed it is a view held by many in the gas fitting industry and said there is a good case to ban them here.
"They're susceptible to not burning correctly. They create condensation and the unburnt gas goes directly into the room that the people are sitting in with the heater and that's dangerous."
Similarly, he recommended flued gas heaters or ones that were fixed in position.
"In this day and age there are a lot of cleaner greener alternatives like central heating."
