Well here is a story.

Once I worked on site (along with about 600 hundred other people). The site had a limited gas supply and it only reached 2 areas, the energy centres where it suppled the boilers and the kitchen. At the back of the kitchen was a shut off valve which would automatically be closed if there was a fire alarm activation.  One weekend our facilities people were testing the fire alarm and it all went well, apparently. The following morning, Monday, someone went in the kitchen and tried to turn on the cookers but they did not work. They did smell gas though and called in the lads from facilities who then tried to identify the leak. It was the emergency shut off valve. It had been sitting in 2 foot of water and rusted away. When the solenoid was activated it had totally failed and released loads of gas.  The facilities lads had no idea how to shut off the gas. In the end they had to shut the master valve next to the meter for the whole site which was now gas free.

We brought an engineer to review the system and he said we needed two things: a) a valve that was not submerged in water so that it did not corrode away but also b) a plan of what to do if there is gas leak and training for staff to be able to isolate the various parts of the gas supply system on site.

So, you probably do need something in writing detailing what you would do if there was a gas leak and who would do it. It need not be a massive document but the important thing is that it exists and people know what to do rather than spend a chunk of the morning running around trying to locate a gas valve and hoping there isn’t an explosion.

Well you certainly need an emergency procedure which should cover all eventualities. Whether you need a gas leak procedure as well really depends if you have personnel on site who have the knowledge deal with a gas leak, otherwise any evacuation will fall under the emergency procedure.  

The reason I don't really want to have a gas leak procedure is because it does add administrative overhead - simply writing it takes effort (more effort if it's a whole new document, less if I shoe-horn it into some other document), and I really don't see it doing any good whatsoever.  As a matter of principle, I object to text in quality paperwork that does no-one any benefit.

In our case, gas does not enter any part of the building that vents to any of the occupied parts of the building, so a leak is unlikely to cause harm unless it's so big it leaves a crater, at which point a procedure that says 'turn the gas off' is a bit pointless.

If, by some chance, someone did smell leaking gas then the only action we can take is to turn off at the meter, and I honestly think it's patently obvious to the relevant people that if something is leaking gas they should turn it off at the meter.  I really hope no-one says to themselves “gosh there's a gas leak, I know, I shall start reading through the quality procedures to determine what action to take”

I dispute that anyone needs an emergency procedure that covers all eventualities.   There has to be a test of risk and benefit, and the only reasonably foreseeable benefit here is avoiding a debate with an auditor – maybe that’s sufficient benefit to add a paragraph to the paperwork, but I honestly believe it won’t make anyone any safer.

Edited by user 29 October 2018 10:26:25(UTC)  | Reason: spelling

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel

 “Patently obvious to the relevant people” a loaded phrase. As I said it was, in my experience “patently obvious” until the stuff hit the proverbial. You should also have a think about how you do document management if a one page procedure takes too much time and effort.  I think that the quality dog is wagging the operational tail!

Writing a procedure just to shut an auditor up would be the tail wagging the dog.  That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

(Here's amusing - my 'security image' seems to be 'woof' - at least, that's how I think I'd pronounce it).

Do you have contractors that may require access to the plant room/ around the area? Would they know what to do if they smelled gas on your site? What about Carbon Monoxide? Do all of your staff know what to do? ? As there is gas on site, it is a foreseeable risk that something could go wrong.

How about you write out the procedure on a piece of paper-laminate it and stick it up in the maintenance guys’ room. But add to it in large letters: “Under no circumstances must any auditor or other busy body be allowed sight of this document. It is too important for the likes of them!”

That is real document control.

Originally Posted by: achrn

Originally Posted by: jodieclark1510

Do you have contractors that may require access to the plant room/ around the area? Would they know what to do if they smelled gas on your site? What about Carbon Monoxide? Do all of your staff know what to do? ? As there is gas on site, it is a foreseeable risk that something could go wrong.

What about carbon monoxide?  I can see even less possible hazard with respect to carbon monoxide (the only equipment that burns gas being in a plant room in the roof that has something like 8 square metres of ventilation area to the outside world - two louvred vents, each gross dims more than two metres by more than three metres, each extending to well above head height).

The British Gas service people and aircon service people each require occasional access  to the plant room.  I don't foresee trying to brief British Gas maintenance staff on what to do if they suspect a gas leak will go down well.  I suppose I could test the aircon people on what they'd do.

OK, sorry seeing as I'm not astute with your site. Do you have pest control or anyone else go into your plant rooms, Asbestos surveyors ( if you are a pre 2000 build) or electricians perhaps? You can't always rely on people to use "common sense".

Thanks all for comments.

I'm inclined to take the approach of adding a notice setting out what to do (ie, turn off the gas and don't ignite anything - there's no control on ventilation in the relevant room - it has got enormous permanently open vents) to the door of the relevant room and probably on the wall inside as well.

I still dispute that text in a document in 'the system' somewhere does anyone any good at all simply by existing, and I remain opposed to adding text to 'the system' that doesn't have some actual benefit.

I'm also unconvinced that emergency procedures must address every foreseable situation.  Some of you must have extraordinarily fat emergency procedures.  I can make up lots of scenarios that might occur that we don't have a pre-written procedure for - the adjacent premises has some large trees, what if they decide to fell one, mess it up, and it falls onto our building?  We're also under the flightpath of an international airport.  I don't have a falling trees and airliners procedure.

I do include a gas leak procedure in emergency procedures where there is gas.  The main point is to tell people what the emergency gas leak phone number is.  Or is that patently obvious and everyone knows it by heart?

Originally Posted by: achrn

I still dispute that text in a document in 'the system' somewhere does anyone any good at all simply by existing, and I remain opposed to adding text to 'the system' that doesn't have some actual benefit.

I'm also unconvinced that emergency procedures must address every foreseable situation. 

If the procedure simply exists on a system, without anyone being made aware of it/reading it/being trained on it, then I would agree, but that is not what a procedure is supposed to be about, is it? Perhaps on the other issue, the term 'reasonably foreseeable' would be more appropriate. You are not expected to 'make up' scenarios that are not reasonably foreseeable. One premises I heard of in a similar position didn't have mention of the possibility of an aircraft coming down on it, which would have been a real problem from the nature of the premises, but then 9/11 happened and they had to reconsider the possibility, although they could still conclude on balance that it was extremely unlikely and therefore not really worth considering. That is what risk assessment is for, isn't it?

Do you have emergency/contingency arrangements for a water leak/flooding, interruption of the power supply, loss of phone lines/internet access etc? Gas is just one more utility, and I'm struggling to see the problem in having a few simple arrangements documented.

I do not whether the the organisation that is being referred to is accredited to ISO45001 or 18001 but if it is then under ISO45001:

Clause 6.1.2.1 b(1) there is a need to identify hazards in the workplace; and

Clause 8.2 - Emergency Preparedness and Response

Therefore a gas leak is foreseeable so it would make sense to have a procedure in place that ALL staff are aware of and can be confident in.

However, given the number of response already, i'll leave it.