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Home Safety

Fire Safety

Fire prevention within your home is of the highest priority for CBH and is monitored through visits from our service engineers and repair teams. Mentioned below are a few simple actions you must take to ensure the safety of you, your family and anyone else within the property and surrounding areas.

Your home should have a smoke alarm fitted. If it hasn’t, tell us straight away and we will fit one for you. Never paint over or remove an alarm. Please be aware that you should never remove a working battery from a smoke alarm. Make sure that the alarm is dusted regularly.

Never

  • Leave a chip pan on the cooker
  • Smoke in bed
  • Cover storage, convector or fan heaters
  • Leave an open flame, such as candles, unattended
  • Leave clothes to dry in front of a radiant heater
  • Remove a door closer (a special hinge found on the fire door)

Always

  • Keep doors closed at night
  • Unplug all electrical equipment when you are not using it and at night
  • Get rid of matches and cigarettes carefully
  • Use a fireguard with coal, electric and gas fires
  • Test your smoke alarm once a month, ensuring that it is clean and dust free
  • Report any broken or damaged electrical sockets or outlets to CBH
  • Allow access to CBH’s operatives or contractors to complete necessary inspections or maintenance works

TOP TIP – Plan an escape route

If fire breaks out in your home, leave the building as quickly as possible, close all doors (if possible) as you go and phone 999 for the fire brigade. Do not re-enter the building in any circumstance until the fire service advise you that it is safe to do so.

If there is a fire within the communal area or another flat in your block and there is no immediate danger, unless otherwise instructed, you are encouraged to stay in your flat, keep your fire door closed and call the fire service on 999. You will need to wait until they advise you it is safe to evacuate your property.

There are lots of things you can do to keep you and your neighbours safe and reduce the risk of a fire. If you live in a block of flats, it’s really important and a requirement of our Fire Safety Policy and Tenancy Agreement that you don’t store any of your items in any of the communal areas so that you and your family can escape safely. To help with this Stroud District Council in partnership with Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service have produced a video highlighting why these actions are so vital to ensure the safety of our customers and how we can all work together to keep each other fire safe – check it out here.

Please familiarise yourself with the Fire Action notice within your block, usually located on the noticeboard in your particular scheme.

See the Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service safety advice web page for more information.

We carry out fire risk surveys on all the properties we manage. If you’d like to see a copy of the fire survey for your home please contact us 0800 408 0000 | technical.services@cbh.org

Annual Gas Servicing

PH Jones Ltd is our gas servicing and maintenance contractor. When the safety check is due they will:

Send a letter to your property, detailing the appointment date and time that the engineer will be attending. If this is not convenient, we ask you to contact them using one of the four methods of contact detailed below to arrange an alternative time

You will receive a text confirmation providing a link to allow you to track their location and expected arrival time.

 A PH Jones engineer will then call round at the arranged time to do the work. If you are not in, the engineer will leave a second card, asking you to contact again to arrange another time

As a responsible landlord Cheltenham Borough Homes uses independent auditors Morgan Lambert to check approximately 5% of the service and new installations carried out by PH Jones.

PH Jones use Voluntas to check the quality of their own engineers’ work. If you find your property being audited twice please feel able to cancel one of the appointments and Morgan Lambert or Qualitas will automatically select another property.

You can contact PH Jones 24hrs a day 7 days a week to re-book and to also advise us of any specific requirements:

Telephone CBH

0800 408 0000 & select Option 2

Online Portal

Visit myportal.phjones.com – you will need your reference and postcode

Email

gasenquiries@phjones.com

Smell Gas? Immediately call National Grid on 0800 111 999 (freephone) or follow the link to the National Grid website 

Getting your heating and water back on: If ever your gas supply is turned off by the National Grid and you have no heating or hot water, then call PH Jones for an urgent call-out they will attend as soon as possible within 24 hours.

Carbon Monoxide Detectors

It is essential that all our tenants have Carbon Monoxide (CO) Detectors in their properties where gas appliances are present and also if you are burning solid fuel. This is why we fit battery-powered Carbon Monoxide alarms to the homes we manage. These alarms save lives!

PH Jones will fit the detector in the appropriate fixed position in your property so that it is most effective should there be a CO risk, if you do not have any CO detectors and you think you should then please contact us immediately.

It is your responsibility to report any faults with your CO detector and you can do this by simply pressing the test button. Every year our Service Engineers will also test your CO detector and record its location when they attend to complete the annual service.

Removed, misplaced or damaged CO detectors will need to be replaced and you may be recharged for the replacement CO detector so it is important that they remain in your property.

Carbon Monoxide Detector beeping?
Carbon monoxide poisoning can be fatal and symptoms include:

Light-headedness

 Shortness of breath

Nausea

Dizziness 

Headaches 

Sleepiness 

Most detectors have a 7 or 10 year battery life. Be aware of the difference between your Carbon Monoxide Detector beeping (suspected carbon monoxide leak) and chirping (low battery alert).

If you cannot determine whether your carbon monoxide detector is beeping or chirping:

Don’t

  • Don’t smoke or light matches
  • Don’t turn electrical switches on or off

Do

  • Do open the doors and windows
  • Do turn off the meter at the control handle unless the meter is in the cellar
  • Do call the National Gas Emergency number (0800 111 999)

Gas Safety

Make sure you know where the gas shut off valve is (usually beside the meter) and how to turn it off in an emergency. If you think you can smell gas:

Don’t

  • Don’t turn electric switches on or off
  • Don’t smoke
  • Don’t use naked flames

Do

  • Do turn off the gas supply at the meter
  • Do open all doors and windows to get rid of the gas
  • Do check to see if the gas tap has been turned on accidentally
  • Do check if a ring or pilot has been blown out

For any gas emergency at anytime call The National Grid on 0800 111 999 (freephone) or follow the link to the National Grid website for information regarding gas.

Asbestos in your Home

We carry out specialist surveys on all our homes to identify the location and condition of any asbestos.

We aim to keep you safe and make sure there is no accidental release of asbestos fibres during refurbishment work or repairs. We will not normally remove undamaged, well maintained and undisturbed asbestos products, as they are perfectly safe.

If your home does contain asbestos, you should avoid damaging it in any way as asbestos fibres in the air, if inhaled, can cause a number of harmful diseases, the effects of which only become apparent after many years.

DIY and Asbestos

Don’t

  • Don’t drill, sand or scrape anything you think might contain asbestos
  • Don’t try to remove textured coating from walls and ceiling. Wash any areas of flaking paint before repainting
  • Don’t try to remove old floor tiles or linoleum. Leave them in place and lay new coverings over them

Always

  • Always soak wallpaper before removing. If possible use a steam stripper and the gently peel away the paper before redecorating
  • Always remember to refer to your tenancy handbook before carrying out any improvements, DIY or repairs

If you’re not sure if you have asbestos in your home we can provide you with a copy of your home’s asbestos survey.
Contact us 0800 408 0000 | technical.services@cbh.org

Damp and Mould

We take any reports about damp and mould seriously, please let us know if you have any concerns through your MyCBH account or calling 0800 408 0000

Your safety comes first! You can find more information on how we can help you with damp and mould here.

Legionnaires’ Disease

Legionnaires’ disease is a lung infection you can catch by inhaling droplets of water from things like air conditioning or hot tubs, showers, taps and toilets.

It’s usually caught in places like hotels, hospitals or offices where the bacteria have got into the water supply. It’s very rare to catch it at home.

We are responsible for the water systems in your home and we have a legal duty to make sure that risk of exposure to legionella is properly assessed and controlled. We carry out risk assessments to prevent or control the risk, and we take appropriate action or make repairs where needed.

KEEPING YOUR HOME SAFE FROM BACTERIA

  • If you have taps or showers you don’t use regularly, run them for 5-10 minutes at least once a month to clear the pipes.
  • Try to clean the outside of taps and shower heads at least once every three months.
  • Ensure there aren’t any places where water can stay still and build up bacteria.

Safety in the home

RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) have a wide range of advice and information on what you can do to prevent accidents in and around the home – you can find out more here.