What 30 Years in Plumbing Reveals About Gas Safety

Plumber of the Year 2022, Jimmy Hendry, joins the UK Construction Blog Podcast for a candid conversation on the realities of gas safety in the UK. Hosted by Jimmy Webb, the episode draws on over 30 years of hands-on experience in plumbing and gas engineering to explore why serious safety risks continue to exist despite strict regulations. 

This episode looks at how gas safety is applied in the real world, not just on paper.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why gas safety laws and enforcement are failing homeowners and tenants
• How unqualified gas work continues despite the Gas Safe Register
• The dangers of cheap boiler servicing and what a proper service involves
• Why boilers can still be bought and installed without proper checks
• The gap between gas safety regulations and everyday practice
• What happens when plumbers challenge safety failures publicly

Gas safety is not just a compliance issue. It is a public safety issue.

This conversation is essential viewing for plumbers, gas engineers, landlords, construction professionals, and homeowners who want to understand the real risks behind boiler installations and servicing in the UK.

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https://plumberscompany.org.uk/

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Special shoutout to our dynamic host Jimmy Webb of Construction Cogs: https://constructioncogs.com

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Transcript

From groundbreaking projects to game-changing innovations, the UK Construction Podcast brings you face-to-face with the industry's brightest minds and boldest thinkers. Each episode features candid conversations with construction leaders, architects, engineers, and on-site experts who share their hard-won insights and behind-the-scenes perspectives. We cut through the noise to deliver actionable intelligence on market trends, emerging technologies, and the forces shaping British building.

Jimmy Webb: Hello and welcome. Today we have plumber guru, Jimmy Hendry. He's a former Plumber of the Year award winner in 2022 and he's a master plumber up in Scotland. That's right, he is Scottish. We can provide subtitles for you, it's not a problem. Jimmy, how are we doing, mate? Thanks for coming on.

Jimmy Hendry: I'm very well this morning. Thanks very much for the invite, Jimmy.

Jimmy Webb: Good man. You've got a wonderful name, Jimmy, as well, by the way. It's one of those names—many kings have been named James. So yeah, we come from a good background there.

Jimmy Hendry: That's it. That's it.

Jimmy Webb: Before we delve into—well, we're going to put the world to rights today, aren't we—but before we do that, tell us more about who you are and why you're here.

Jimmy Hendry: I've done a few different bits in plumbing and construction through my last 31 years in the trade. I really came to prominence back in 2021. I started raising issues around the gas safety laws. I've since found out that I'm not the only one who's raised these concerns, but they get blanked, they get blanked by industry. You get quite a lot of people saying you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do the next thing.

It got me the On The Tools Plumber of the Year 2022 when I raised this. I've won a few other awards and been nominated for a few as well for my stance on it. We see it today. I was speaking to a friend recently who was in London for something and he tried raising issues and they get swept under the carpet because I feel—and this is just my own feeling—I feel there's too much of the money side and the politics at play. People don't want to raise this because they are being funded by X, Y and Z in the background.

I've since found out as well, they've got an agenda. I'm not saying that as a secret, but they've got certain things that they will deal with within a 12 month period. And if you're not on that list, they tend not to deal with that. Not unless you start throwing it right into their face and then you'll perhaps get a response on it.

From the gas safety stuff, we then led on to other things such as the defibrillator units, which we'll talk about. Other people throw things your way and say, "Oh, have you thought about this and thought about that?" It can be your own personal observations as well. When you start highlighting these things, especially on the likes of LinkedIn, you will get other professionals going, "We know what you mean, we've seen this as well." They will give you supporting pieces of evidence. I think if you're bold enough to raise your head above the parapet, plenty of other folk will also start throwing you that relevant information, which will only support your case and it's taken off from there really.

I do a lot on Fix Radio these days as well. I've just been asked again by On The Tools to judge the Heating Installer of the Year award, which will be the second year in a row that I have done that. I did it last year and I got a bit of support from Dan Tempest, another Plumber of the Year winner. He won in 2023. He stole my crown as I like to say to him, but he doesn't take offence at that hopefully. But no, it's trying to get the message out to everyone so that everyone will listen, or at least take note.

Jimmy Webb: Sure. Yeah, sure. So when you initially raised these issues, who did you raise them to and how?

Jimmy Hendry: I initially started—it's funny because I actually started just raising them. I noticed the main one for me—I went into B&Q one day just to grab a couple of bits and there was a guy in front of me who was clearly installing his own gas cooker. He had the gas hose, he had the bayonet connection which goes onto the wall which the hose connects onto. He had a length of plastic pipe and a few plastic elbows. My first thought was, where are you going with those? I didn't quite—my English wasn't quite as good as that. But I thought to myself, well, where are you going with those? Because you're trying to instal gas using plastic piping.

I started looking through like Gas Installer magazine, I started looking through the HSE press releases and I noticed that 80% of the gas prosecutions were people who are classed as rogue engineers. They've got no qualifications. They've got no right to be doing what they're doing, but they're doing it anyway and they're being fined. If you actually read through, the prosecuting agent is the HSE. The HSE oversees the Gas Safe Register. So if you report anything, any gas faults, you'll report it through the RIDDOR system at HSE and they will then take you to court if they're lucky enough to get their day in court.

But it's all the same things. I noticed that 80% of them were people fitting gas boilers that they have no right to fit.

Jimmy Webb: Wow.

Jimmy Hendry: So I said to them, I said, why don't we bring in a law then that says if you don't have your Gas Safe cards, you can't buy a boiler. And the pushback I have had on that from the industry has been unbelievable. Don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of friends, plenty of colleagues. I'm a fellow at the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineers, and I've got many—one of my friends, Paul Hull is a member of the Chartered Institute. He said, we tried to raise the same in 2018 and it got nowhere because it doesn't get the industry support.

You have the Institute of Gas Engineers and Managers, you have Gas Safe Register, you've got the HSE, you've got the Association of Plumbing and Heating Contractors, Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineers, and you've got the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers' Federation. They all look after the interests of plumbers throughout the country, but not one of them have gotten together and went, let's deal with this.

Before it was Gas Safe Registered, it was CORGI, the Council of Registered Gas Installers, and CORGI Technical Services, they still run many different gas courses. Give it its due, Debra Stevenson from CORGI Services had got in touch with me only a few months ago and said, "Look, we like what you're doing, we would like to support you. We have tried to do this as well," but they've been kind of back-footed as well. It's quite often the case that if you don't have industry recognition, then it will go nowhere.

Jimmy Webb: So is this because—are they doing this because if it goes through, then you'll be limiting the market to only tradesmen, so there'll be less money coming into the economy. Is that what it is or what?

Jimmy Hendry: Well, I discussed this the other day on Fix Radio, and that was one of the arguments that came up, but realistically, if you're fitting a gas boiler, you should be Gas Safe Registered. So regardless—say you want to buy a boiler, Jimmy, right? And you go, "I can get it cheaper than you're providing it." There's nothing stopping you going, "Right, I can get it cheaper. We'll go down together and we'll buy the boiler." We go down together to buy the boiler. You say, "I'd like to buy this boiler." They say, "Have you got a Gas Safe card?" "This is my engineer. This is who's fitting it. Here is his Gas Safe card." That way you're clearing it.

But I mean, if you look at the likes of Intergas boilers—an Intergas boiler, and I say this because this is the boiler we tend to fit—you cannot register a guarantee with them unless you have a Gas Safe number. Anyone can go in and fit that boiler. But if you want the 10 year, 12 year, whatever guarantee they provide, you have to provide them with a relevant Gas Safe number of the engineer who installed that and commissioned that boiler.

But I was at Saniflo in Dublin in September last year. They're a big fittings manufacturer and someone there in the meeting—I can't remember who it was—had said that there's a statistic out there that says only 17% of domestic gas boilers are ever actually properly registered.

I put a post on LinkedIn about a month ago now, asking boiler companies—I asked Vaillant, I asked Worcester Bosch, I asked Ideal and I asked Intergas. "What percentage of your boilers that you sell do you actually get the paperwork back for with the registered guarantee?" No one replied. And someone said it's because they sell far more boilers than they ever actually get registered. That's why they're happy. That's why I feel they're happy to offer a 10 year, 12 year guarantee, because when you've only got 20% of people coming back with the correct paperwork—a guarantee only works, especially on gas boilers, if you've fitted their filter and in many cases it has to be—if you're fitting like an Intergas boiler, they'll tell you to fit a specific kind of filter. They will tell you that your boiler has to be serviced every single year without fail. You need to have a record of that being done. There are many different things that if you don't have it, it'll knock two years off your guarantee or three years off your guarantee.

Jimmy Webb: Is that law, that getting your boiler serviced? Is it law?

Jimmy Hendry: No, it's not law. It's like getting your car serviced. I often see people—how often do you get your boiler serviced? Someone will say, "Oh, it's usually every three years." I mean, one of my friends said to me, "Oh, I've not had my boiler serviced." He'd been in the house for 10 years and his boiler wasn't working. He said to me, "Oh, my boiler's not working." I said, "I'll take a look at it."

When I took the front cover off, there was dead daddy long legs and spider webs. Any plumber will tell you that they come up on boilers like that all the time. I said to him, "When did you last get it serviced?" "I've been in here 10 years. I've never had it serviced." I said, "It's done. It's not working. You have killed this boiler." And he went, "Oh, you sure?" And I said, "Yes." And I said to him, "Well, would you drive your car for 10 years and never have it serviced?" "No, you wouldn't think twice to do that." And you use your boiler more than you use your car.

You use it for your heating. Every time you turn on your hot tap—most people nowadays, I mean, I'm in a new house, it's five years old now, but it's a combi boiler. Combi boilers, every time you turn on a hot tap, that boiler has to come on and provide you with hot water. There are so many people who don't actually realise that they're using their boiler as much as they are. They don't think. Then it's only when it breaks—"Oh, we've got no heating, we've got no hot water." It's like, maybe if you'd done a bit of maintenance on your boiler, you wouldn't be in this situation.

Jimmy Webb: But not only that, it's a huge safety risk, isn't it?

Jimmy Hendry: Oh, it's a massive safety risk. I mean, Lauren from ATAG, who are also supporting this campaign, they said that the other day—you've got the risk of carbon monoxide, which is massive. People just don't take it seriously at all. We're in a position where we have many people fitting gas boilers.

I get the kickback. I always say on LinkedIn, you get the masters of industry. Everyone's a CEO or everyone's a director or production manager or director of this, that and the next thing. They'll say, "Oh, you can do anything. You can do anything." And you go, "Right, okay, how about doing this?" "Oh, you can't do that." "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."

I often feel that, especially with professional bodies, I question if they are getting funded to a certain degree by these boiler companies. "We want you, this is the agenda we want you to raise. We don't want you to raise this. We don't want to even discuss this."

In 2023, Gas Safety Week had just finished in the UK. In 2023, I was asked to go on to Fix Radio and discuss this very subject. Fix Radio also asked Gas Safe Register to come on and discuss the subject. But Gas Safe Register said they would decline the opportunity to discuss this publicly. And you think to yourself, that's Gas Safe Register declining the opportunity to discuss gas safety in the run up to Gas Safety Week. You go, how can that be that Gas Safe Register don't want to discuss gas safety?

When I started raising it through and attaching the HSE things, because it's all the same one. It's either a 3-1, which means that they're not competent. That means they haven't sat the proper qualification. Not qualified means they're not on the Gas Safe Register. And the other one is a 3-7 restriction, which means they are pretending to be on the Gas Safe Register, which is an offence in itself.

So you've got a 3-1 offence, a 3-3 offence or a 3-7 offence. If you actually look through the gas prosecutions on the HSE website, they're all 3-1, 3-3 or 3-7, which means they're not competent, they're not qualified or they're just pretending to be Gas Safe Registered.

There's nothing stopping anyone from going on to eBay and buying some Gas Safe stickers to put on their van, getting themselves a Gas Safe T-shirt and putting it on there as well and going out and doing gas jobs until they get caught.

Jimmy Webb: So this is a criminal offence, right?

Jimmy Hendry: Yeah, this is a criminal offence. You tend to find that all that happens with them is they get, if they get caught, they will get a suspended sentence. If they get caught again, they'll get another suspended sentence. You have multiple prosecutions where people have either had a prohibition notice put on their work or they've been given another suspended sentence on top of what they already have, which is another suspended sentence.

I was always of the opinion that if you got a suspended sentence and you were caught doing the same crime again, you were going to prison. But no, all they get is repeated suspended sentences.

Jimmy Webb: Yeah, so I'm assuming, the way I see it is, as long as they don't commit a crime within the end of that suspended sentence, so if that gets spent, then it restarts again, I suppose.

Jimmy Hendry: No, many of them are on suspended sentences that they're still serving for the same crime. Either that or they have a prohibition notice on their work which says, "Don't do any more gas work until you are properly competent"—in other words, you've sat a course and then you're qualified because you joined the Gas Safe Register—and they're continuing anyway.

I mean, there was one guy caught a couple of years ago who hadn't sat a gas qualification since the 70s and he was doing it. As many people say, you tend to find they only get fined the cost of that job. So they lose that job. If you're doing, say you're doing two boilers a week, you could be clearing in your hand, no bother, four grand a week in your hand.

So if you get fined, say you're doing that week in, week out, and we'll say generously you're doing five boilers a month, you're getting two grand a boiler. If you get fined every three years, five grand, you're going to be like, "Yeah." As someone said to me the other day, it's a lot cheaper than having to go on the Gas Safe Register. It's a lot cheaper than having to upkeep your tools and upkeep your gas analyser and all your tools, which have to be calibrated annually.

It's just a case of, here's the boiler, stick it on the wall. You've got heat and you've got hot water, see you later.

Jimmy Webb: Do you know what, I had no idea that there are many people out there crazy enough to do this. So when you were saying about people buying boilers, I was thinking to myself, why do people actually want to buy boilers themselves? But this is obviously why they're doing it. It's just mental that this is going on, that they're prepared to put people's lives at risk for making a quick buck.

Jimmy Hendry: I mean, it's people as well. People will try and get a cheaper option any time they can. If I quote you for a boiler right now, we'll say an average boiler costs four thousand pounds. If you've got someone down the road who's doing boilers and they can do it for two and a half grand, who are you going to go with, the one at four grand or the one at two and a half? Many people will go, "We'll take the one at two and a half."

My friend quoted a boiler recently and he says, "Oh, I didn't get the job." And the guy came back and he says, "Oh, this other guy was six hundred quid cheaper." And he went, "Okay, can I see the paperwork?" And he showed him the paperwork and he said, "Yeah, the difference is I'm fitting an Intergas boiler." Now an Intergas boiler is roughly about twelve hundred pounds. He says "Your mate here is fitting"—we'll not name the boiler—but he says "You're fitting a boiler that costs six hundred quid. So he's maybe getting it for four fifty, five hundred. So you're getting a far inferior boiler."

"This guy's not even on the Gas Safe Register. So he's not having to pay the same costs that I'm having to pay. So if you're not paying all those business rates—" I mean, Alan Hart, The Plumber Online, had said it the other day. "Should we all be on a level playing field? Should we all be paying VAT?" Because he's losing jobs to people who are not VAT registered. He's having to add on that 20 per cent to the cost of his job. He said if we were all paying VAT, it would be a level playing field. But I'm losing jobs to guys who are either doing it for cash or they're not paying the VAT on that thing. That's what it comes down to.

But one of the things that I never took on board—I had a friend who passed away a couple of years ago. He was a gas safety expert. He said to me, and until he said it I hadn't really taken on board, but he said, "It isn't just the responsibility of the engineer to ensure that they're Gas Safe Registered, it is also the responsibility of the householder to check that they are actually Gas Safe Registered."

Because when you get your card, it will have your name, it will have your qualifications on it. But when you get it, it's not just a case of looking at it and going, "Oh, Jimmy Webb, he's Gas Safe Registered, he can crack on." You have to turn the card round and it actually tells you what they're qualified to do. So you maybe find that they've got, we'll say CEN1, which is central heating and water, so they can do boilers, but they don't have fires.

You might say to them, "All right, can you do my boiler?" "Right." "Oh, while you're here, can you service my gas fire?" They might service your gas fire and it might come to light later on that they never had that qualification to do that part of the work. As was pointed out to me, it's a bit like looking at the back of a driving licence.

You don't just take the driving licence and go, "Oh, they can drive everything." You look at the back of the driving licence and go, "Oh, he's not got a motorcycle licence, he's only got a car licence."

When that came about, the HSE had actually tried to prosecute someone and they'd gone to my friend Tony. Tony had come back to the HSE and said, "You cannot prosecute this guy. Because yes, you're correct that he wasn't qualified, but it's a dual responsibility." They say they're a responsible person, meaning the householder, landlord, whatever. 

It's up to them to actually check that what they're being told is correct. You can do that as a two minute check on the Gas Safe website. They give you the card, you go on the Gas Safe website, you input the details. If their picture doesn't come up for any reason, there is clearly a problem. That's when you go to them, "You can't do that because you're not qualified."

Jimmy Webb: But is Joe Public educated enough on that?

Jimmy Hendry: No, that is a big thing. They are not educated enough. Gas Safe will tell you things like, last year they'd say, "Trust the mark, just trust the Gas—if someone's got a Gas Safe T-shirt, they're fine." And you go, "Well, no, they're not," because as I've already said, and as I've already proved through eBay, I can go on and buy a T-shirt that says Gas Safe Registered. I can buy stickers which say Gas Safe Registered. It's not just the case that if someone says they're Gas Safe Registered, you believe them.

Jimmy Webb: Yeah, this is the thing. I mean, what if you get like 83-year-old Dorothy that's got this guy in and she hasn't got a clue what she's looking at. She doesn't know how to check people. She hasn't got internet. How is she going to know? How do you educate these people?

Jimmy Hendry: I think that comes down to the Gas Safe Register and the HSE and professional bodies. I mean, one professional body on the line there, the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineers, that's down to publications in normal newspapers and stuff, educating people. You need to educate people because people don't know.

It's the same with the water regulations. Water regulations in England, Scottish water bylaws, they're the same document pretty much, but they put a dual responsibility on. So if I come along to your house and I fit a shower, say for instance, there's a little ring on the shower which holds the hose in place, you might've seen it, hose retention clip it's called. The purpose of that is so that the showerhead doesn't fall into the bath. You might get a problem where it might suck water back in through the system. So you've got soapy water getting sucked back in through that showerhead.

The dual responsibility on that falls to the householder and the plumber. You might come along to a job, do that. I often do it. I'll fit the hose retention clip and the householder will come along and take that off because "I like to take the showerhead and give myself a good going over with it. I can't do that because that clip's on there." That's up to you. But then the responsibility is yours if anything goes wrong, if you poison anyone, if anything goes wrong.

That's covered and it's the same with gas, but you don't tend to get the HSE will go, "Oh, how are people supposed to know about that? They're not." You need to educate them so that they do know about that sort of thing.

Jimmy Webb: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It needs to be broadly educated, broadly broadcast on the TV, if anything.

Jimmy Hendry: TV, newspapers, magazines. I'm on Reels all the time on my phone. Start sticking it on Reels, start educating people. But I mean, we get told that the HSE do not have enough bodies. The only reason the HSE do not have enough bodies is because they're too busy prosecuting people on repeat offences.

Charles Brooks is a solicitor, a lawyer, and he's the master at the Worshipful Company of Plumbers in London, which I'm a part of. I highlight Charles and all these things as well because it's a waste of court time. We talk quite often about, "Oh, the courts have got a big backlog at the courts because of COVID and a big backlog at the courts." How many of these cases are repeat offenders doing the same thing time and again, time and again, time and again? And that part never gets discussed.

I did try to raise that with the HSE as well. I said, "Oh, you're wasting time with people, but how many times have you already prosecuted that same person for that same offence?" And you never look at that.

Jimmy Webb: So what do you do now then? I mean, how do you lobby it now if they're not listening?

Jimmy Hendry: Well, I mean, I had tried 2021 till about 2023. I won, as I say, I won the On The Tools Plumber of the Year for highlighting that amongst other things, defence being another one. We got to a stage where I'd raised it with my MP and my MP started raising questions in Parliament. At that point, it was the Conservative Party that were in power. My MP is an SNP, Scottish National Party MP. Whenever he raised questions, they just get, "We're not dealing with that. We're not dealing with that. The laws we have in are sufficient," but they're not. We've proven that, but it gets ignored.

I had raised it to the point where I got what's classed as an Early Day Motion in Parliament, which means it has been officially recognised by Parliament that this is an issue. But that was as far as it got. Then we had a change in government, everything died away.

I've been shortlisted for another two awards. The Heating and Plumbing Monthly magazine, they had nominated me for an award, which I didn't win. Nice to be nominated. And so did CORGI at the ASCP awards. Again, I didn't win, but nice to be nominated. And it had kind of died to death. I raised it sporadically on LinkedIn and on Facebook.

But I was at the Installer Show at the NEC in Birmingham at the end of June. I walked past a couple of girls and I said to them, "What's on your T-shirt?" And they said, "Oh, we're trying to bring in, if you're not qualified, you can't buy gas parts." I said, "Who do you work for?" They said, "We work for ATAG, the boiler company." And I said, "Great," because I knew that ATAG didn't—they don't sell any boilers to anyone who cannot fit them. Anyone who's not on the Gas Safe Register can't buy the parts from the boilers and they can't buy their boilers, not from ATAG anyway.

I said, "Oh, great, I'll catch up with you in the morning." It was like Tuesday evening. So Wednesday morning, I went around and spoke to them. Yeah, they're trying big to try and get this in as well.

I raised this issue with Glow-worm on their stand at Installer Show. I said to them, "Why can anyone buy your boilers?" And they said, "We don't sell our boilers to anyone. We don't sell our boilers to the public. We sell our boilers to the merchants. The merchants then sell it to the public. So if you have an issue, you should go back to the merchants and say to the merchants, why are you selling boilers to the public? Because it's not down to us as boiler manufacturers."

I just thought I could see that sliding off their shoulder and falling away. I honestly couldn't believe that that was the response I got from a national boiler manufacturer. It was repeated on LinkedIn to the point where I thought it was almost word perfect. The response that I got from the individual on the Glow-worm stand was the same as the response I then got when I raised it officially on LinkedIn with Glow-worm. They said, "We don't sell boilers to the public. We sell them to merchants, builders' merchants, plumbers' merchants. They then sell them to the public. So it's them that you need to go knocking on the door of."

Jimmy Webb: It's amazing, isn't it? So I'd like to move on from this, but first, go back to the services and safety checks. How can we make those more affordable for people to get them done regularly?

Jimmy Hendry: I mean, the issue you have at the moment, it depends on several parts. It depends on how in depth they're going to go with their service. I mean,  a proper boiler service should take about an hour. When you see services advertised for £23, you have to question how that’s even possible when the engineer is covering their own tools, van, insurance, and time.

I have friends who do services for £70, and others who charge £120. They’re all doing different things. There’s no single standard list of what must be covered in a boiler service.

A lot of people will go in with a gas analyser, take a flue reading, and if the readings are correct, they’ll say that’s the service done. Other engineers will strip components, replace seals, check anodes, and go through everything that should actually be checked.

That difference usually comes down to cost. To do the job properly, you have to join the Gas Safe Register, get qualified, and keep renewing your tickets. That can cost around £1,200 every five years.

Every year after that, you’ve got your Gas Safe fees, public liability insurance, and the cost of servicing and calibrating equipment like gas analysers and manometers. All of that adds up.

You can make servicing more affordable by shopping around, but once people find an engineer they trust, they’re usually happy to stick with them.

It’s like an MOT. Would you rather pay £50 and know it’s been done properly, or pay £20 and still think something doesn’t feel right? It’s difficult, and things are expensive, but that’s the reality.

Jimmy Webb:
I’ve seen that myself.

Jimmy Hendry:
My dad was like that. He was very frugal and hadn’t had anything checked for years. About ten years ago, an engineer came round and condemned his wall-mounted gas heaters because they were producing too much carbon monoxide.

They checked his cooker and condemned that as well. He took everything out but never replaced it. He’s had no central heating and no cooker for over a decade now.

He lives off microwave meals and one gas heater in the lounge. I’m always saying to him, “Dad, come on.” But that’s the kind of mindset you’re dealing with, and it shows why public education matters.

I’ve been in houses where people cook using one large pot across all four gas rings. That completely starves the flame of oxygen. You see black soot building up the sides of the pan and the wall.

I’ve also seen people take the gas rings off and line the burners with tin foil. My gran used to do it as well. All it does is restrict airflow and stop the appliance working properly.

That kind of thing is common, especially among older people. It’s not malicious, it’s a lack of awareness.

Jimmy Webb:
And it causes wider issues too.

Jimmy Hendry:
It does. I visited a house in Leeds where the owner said it was freezing. I couldn’t find a boiler anywhere.

I walked round the house and realised there was no central heating at all. No boiler, no radiators. Just a gas cooker and a gas fire.

To this day, I don’t know if she ever got heating installed. Cold homes lead to damp, mould, and long-term health problems. I grew up with condensation on the windows every winter and thought it was normal.

Jimmy Webb:
Let’s talk about defibrillators.

Jimmy Hendry:
A friend of mine lost his brother on a site in Edinburgh in 2021. He collapsed and died. There was no defibrillator on site.

A petition raised 66,000 signatures to get it discussed in Parliament, but it needed 100,000. It didn’t get there.

I said to him, instead of stopping, start contacting people directly. Raise it publicly. Start asking companies what they’re doing.

A lot of people don’t like being named on LinkedIn. They’re happy for their company to be mentioned, but not for shortcomings to be pointed out. You do get pushback.

Jimmy Webb:
You’ve been doing that though.

Jimmy Hendry:
I do it all the time. I’m happy to name and shame if it leads to change.

I contacted Galliford Try and spoke to Alistair Gill, their head of health and safety. He told me they provide defibrillators in every site office and often donate them at the end of a job.

That’s exactly how it should be, but very few companies actually do it.

Life is cheap on a building site. Last year there were around 51 deaths in construction in the UK, more than double the next highest industry.

You’re dealing with high-stress environments, people coming in hungover, poor diets, long hours. All of it adds up.

Jimmy Hendry:
I contacted Galliford Try and they were on the ball. After that, I looked at Forth Electrical Services. They’re a major UK company, and I actually served my apprenticeship alongside people who went on to work there, so I know quite a few of them.

They put up a post about apprenticeships and safety. It showed high-vis, safety boots, hard hats and gloves. I commented and asked what they were doing about defibrillators. I didn’t get a reply.

A couple of weeks later, they put up another post. I asked the same question again. This time, I received an email from someone in their Stirling office asking me to call Jason Cross, who’s a director at FES.

I called him. He was very polite and asked, in a fair way, what my issue was. I explained that a friend’s brother had died on a site because there was no defibrillator. I wasn’t saying a defib would have saved him, but it might have given him a better chance.

I said I wanted to see major companies like FES providing defibrillators. Jason explained that they’re often subcontractors, so the main contractor may already have a defib on site. But he said to leave it with him and that he’d speak to the other directors and the managing director, Duncan Fletcher.

Less than two weeks later, they announced they had started providing defibrillators in various areas. They said they couldn’t put one on every site, but they could provide them to site agents and key staff. They took ownership of the issue.

That’s what change looks like. We didn’t need 100,000 signatures. We highlighted the problem and something actually happened.

When you look at HSE reports, especially on projects like HS2, you see fatalities mentioned, including heart attacks, but defibrillators are never mentioned. You’re left asking where they were.

How many heart attacks need to happen before defibrillators become standard? I always say to people, go into your site office on a Monday morning and ask if there’s a defib. If there isn’t, ask why.

I work with a guy in his late sixties who isn’t in great health. If he has a heart attack, I want to know there’s a defib on site.

Jimmy Webb:
Training matters as well.

Jimmy Hendry:
It does, but most defibrillators are self-instructing. I learned this in the fire service. When you open them, they talk you through every step. They tell you where to place the pads, when to stand back, when to start chest compressions.

They monitor what’s happening in the body and only administer a shock if it’s needed. They guide you the whole way.

Once a defib is registered, emergency services can direct callers to the nearest one. If someone collapses near your house and you have a registered unit, 999 will tell people to come and get it. These are small changes that save time.

Everyone should get home from work at the end of the day.

Jimmy Webb:
You’ve also spoken about defibs on cranes.

Jimmy Hendry:
I’ve been advocating for better tower crane rescue planning for years. One of the biggest gaps is defibrillators. There are none up cranes.

If someone has a heart attack 100 metres in the air, no one is getting to them quickly. A defib up there could give them a fighting chance.

You have to ask why they’re not there. Is it cost? Responsibility? Who provides it? On a £40 million job, does a £700 defib really affect profits?

I’ve seen companies spend hundreds on meals and drinks while arguing over timesheets. It comes back to priorities.

Jimmy Webb:
That brings us onto drugs and alcohol.

Jimmy Hendry:
It does. I wrote about this for Alcohol Change UK after working on a site where productivity was low. The reason was simple. Around 20% of the workforce were leaving site during the day to go to the pub.

Everyone signed in in the morning, but there was a back gate. People would leave, drink all day, then either get signed out by a mate or come back and sign themselves out later. On large sites, no one noticed.

On some jobs, people worked four long days and barely did anything on Fridays. Others went out drinking heavily on Thursday nights, came in hungover, found somewhere quiet to sleep, then drove home while still being paid.

I raised it in a meeting and said we had people drunk at work and drunk driving while technically still on the clock. I was told not to look at it like that, but that’s exactly what it was.

I don’t begrudge anyone a drink. The issue is people being away from home, long hours, cheap pubs, and no support. It spirals.

When fatalities happen on site, drugs and alcohol are never mentioned in the reports. It’s always recorded as a fall from height, a vehicle incident, or a slip or trip. The root cause is never addressed.

You never see it written that someone fell because they were hungover, or that a crash happened because someone was drunk driving a machine. That part is completely ignored.

I raised this formally with the HSE. I also spoke to Callum McIntosh, who’s the president of the Scottish Plant Operators Association. He told me he’s been raising the same issue for years.

Callum wanted to introduce a system where operators would be tested in the morning. If they were over the limit, they’d be sent home unpaid and tested again the next day. If they were clear, they could work. Simple.

He was met with silence. Even from within his own organisation. The resistance was unbelievable.

Jimmy Webb:
Why do you think that is?

Jimmy Hendry:
Because if you looked at the true extent of the problem, you’d probably lose about 40% of your workforce overnight. There’s a skills shortage already, and people know how widespread it is.

There are machines now with lights showing seatbelts are on and systems are active, but there’s no way of checking whether the operator is fit for work. The technology exists, but no one wants to use it.

There are professionals who offer proper testing services. People just don’t want testing because they know what it would uncover.

And it’s not just operatives. It’s management too. I’ve known site managers going to the pub, taking drugs, then coming back in the next day. There’s a culture of turning a blind eye.

Health and safety often becomes about PPE. Hard hats, high-vis, boots. No one wants to dig deeper into behaviour or wellbeing because it’s inconvenient.

When I was overseeing health and safety on one site, I started checking CSCS cards properly. Around a third were out of date.

You go into an induction, and most people have experienced this. You’re put in a room, a video plays, and the site agent leaves. I was once in a room where no one spoke English. They’d all travelled long distances, were exhausted, and fell asleep.

At the end, the agent came back, photocopied the CSCS cards, and sent everyone onto site. No checks. No understanding. Just box-ticking.

Those workers then go onto site having watched a safety video they didn’t understand, and everyone pretends the process has been followed.

Jimmy Webb:
That’s a huge risk in itself.

Jimmy Hendry:
It is. When I started raising the issue of drink, I read a report showing that construction workers were among the most likely to be caught for drink driving. Plumbers were right at the top.

That culture is still there. You finish work and people ask if you want to go for a beer. For me, it’s a no. I don’t drink on a school night, and I don’t want to spend all day and all evening with the same people.

But that isn’t the norm.

Interestingly, your next guest runs a company that provides testing but also tries to move away from a strict zero-tolerance mindset. Instead of instantly dismissing people, they focus on education, support, and understanding the reasons behind behaviour.

I’ve seen that approach work. I was on a crane once when a slinger came through the gate and they smelt alcohol on him. They sent him home for the day and told him to come back tomorrow. He did, and everything was fine.

That’s better than immediately sacking someone and pushing them further into a spiral.

This is a vicious cycle, and I’ve been raising these issues for seven or eight years now. When you talk about them publicly, others start sharing the same experiences.

More recently, I’ve been raising concerns about water usage. By around 2055, England is expected to face a five-billion-litre daily shortfall. Scotland is seeing similar issues after record dry summers.

Every household in the UK wastes roughly 144 litres of treated water a day flushing toilets. We treat the water, move it, store it, then flush it away. We’ve normalised that, and it’s another serious issue we’re not addressing properly.

My mother-in-law said to me recently, “Where would you even get water from?” I pointed to the basin in her kitchen sink. She fills it up, washes the dishes, then pours it away. That water alone is enough for one toilet flush.

If you do that four or five times a day, that’s already several flushes wasted. Then you’ve got the shower in the morning, which can easily use around 40 litres of water. That’s another six or seven flushes.

People talk a lot about going green. They choose the easy options like heat pumps or solar panels. But our biggest challenge is water. That will be the biggest issue this country faces in the coming decades, and people aren’t really looking at it.

Jimmy Webb:
That’s another thing for you to keep lobbying for.

Jimmy Hendry:
Exactly. You can mix it up. One day I’ll talk about gas safety, the next day I’ll talk about water.

People sometimes say, “That post only got two likes.” But if you look at it properly, it might have had 25,000 views. That’s 25,000 people now thinking about the issue.

Some people don’t want to like or comment because they don’t want to be publicly linked to controversial topics. But the message still lands, and that’s what matters.

Jimmy Webb:
I’m going to have to leave it there, mate. I feel like I could talk to you all day. I’ll definitely have to get you on my podcast soon to talk about some of this in more depth.

Before we finish, where do you see yourself in five or ten years?

Jimmy Hendry:
I’d like to see myself consulting more on the water issue, because I genuinely think it’s going to become critical.

I’d also like to see changes to gas law. Realistically, I’d love to see defibrillators on every construction site in the UK, although I know that won’t happen overnight.

I’d like to see professional bodies step up and support their members properly, so people feel listened to. Too often, views are passed up the chain and nothing comes back.

I think water will affect more people than we realise, and we’ll hit a point where action has to be taken. I’d like to be advising councils on that. My local council recently delayed housing developments because of water supply concerns, and that’s avoidable if the right advice is taken early.

That’s where I’d like to see myself heading. I’ll be nearly 53 by then, so we’ll see.

Jimmy Webb:
If people want to support you or speak to you about these issues, where can they find you?

Jimmy Hendry:
LinkedIn is the easiest place. I’m very active on there and keep an eye on messages.

People can also contact the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineers, who can pass details on to me. I’m also a member of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers in London, which dates back to 1365. Anyone can reach me through them as well.

If someone sends me a message or connection request on LinkedIn, I’ll reply.

Jimmy Webb:
Brilliant. Keep doing what you’re doing. I really admire it, and I’ll support you however I can.

Thanks so much for your time, mate. I’d love to have you back on in the future.

Jimmy Hendry:
Anytime at all. Thanks very much for having me.

Jimmy Webb:
Thanks, Jimmy. Take care.

Jimmy Hendry:
Cheers. Bye-bye.