CP42 certificates for commercial kitchens, explained
A CP42 is the record a Gas Safe registered engineer completes after checking the gas installation and appliances in a commercial kitchen. CP42 is the name of an industry form, not a term in the law. The legal duty behind it is regulation 35 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, which makes an employer keep the gas appliances, pipework and flues at their workplace in a safe condition.
What the law requires
Regulation 35 applies to the kitchens of restaurants, cafés, pubs, takeaways and hotels. It does not set a date for checks. HSE’s guidance on gas safety in catering and hospitality says the frequency of inspection and servicing should follow the manufacturer’s recommendations, and that as a general rule a yearly inspection is a reasonable minimum.
Regulation 3 controls who does the work. Anyone working on gas must be competent, and a business doing gas work must be on the Gas Safe Register. HSE adds that each engineer needs a valid certificate of competence for the type of gas equipment involved, so the engineer’s qualifications must include catering appliances.
Where staff or guests live on the premises, such as rooms above a pub or a hotel’s staff accommodation, the yearly landlord gas safety check under regulation 36 also applies to the gas serving those rooms.
What a CP42 records
The usual CP42 form has two parts. The first covers the kitchen as a whole: the emergency gas isolation, the pipework, the interlock between the ventilation and the gas supply, and the extraction and ventilation. The second covers each appliance in turn, such as ranges, ovens, fryers and grills.
Any defect is written on the record. HSE says an engineer who finds a risk may class an appliance or installation as At Risk or Immediately Dangerous, and in either case the advice is not to use it. The engineer will ask permission to turn off anything classed as At Risk, or to disconnect anything classed as Immediately Dangerous.
Interlocks and ventilation
A kitchen with mechanical extraction should have an interlock that shuts off the gas to the appliances if the ventilation fails. HSE says manual bypasses of an interlock are not permitted.
BS 6173, the British Standard for installing and maintaining gas catering appliances, is not retrospective. HSE’s advice for an older kitchen without an interlock is to assess whether a risk is likely to arise and, if so, to prevent or control it. Factors that raise the risk include a ventilation system that is unused or unreliable, a small room, and ventilation that is poorly designed or maintained.
IGEM/UP/19 Edition 2, published by the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers (IGEM) in July 2022, sets out how interlocks and associated systems are designed and applied in gas catering installations. The FAQ on kitchen gas interlocks sums up the same rules in brief.
Who checks
In restaurants, pubs, hotels and shops, health and safety law is enforced by the local council rather than by HSE. Under section 20 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, an inspector can require any document needed for an examination or investigation to be produced, so the latest CP42 should be easy to find on site.
Checks staff can make between visits
HSE says kitchen staff who use gas equipment should be trained to use it and to make visual checks for obvious faults, including:
- damaged pipework and connections
- flame supervision devices that do not work (these cut the gas if the flame goes out)
- missing restraints on equipment
- castor locks that do not work on mobile equipment
- a smell of gas
Anyone who smells gas should call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999.
HSE also says domestic carbon monoxide alarms are not normally suitable for commercial kitchens and should not be used there. Where a kitchen has a carbon monoxide alarm, it should give an audible warning and be linked to an automatic gas shut off that needs resetting by hand. An alarm is a warning only: good ventilation and regular maintenance remain the main safeguards.
Booking a CP42 check
At Neos Engineering, the directors hold the Commercial Catering gas qualifications and carry out CP42 checks in restaurant, café, pub and hotel kitchens across all of London. The check covers the kitchen’s gas appliances and pipework, anything found is raised at the time, and the CP42 comes back for the kitchen’s records. The Commercial Catering page has the details, and a check can be booked through the contact page. Neos Engineering also clears blocked kitchen drains for businesses, 24 hours a day.
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