Home owners should ensure their gas appliances have been checked before the Christmas festivities get underway, according to a gas safety technology specialist.

Gas Tag says booking a Gas Safe registered engineer to visit during the next two weeks will help to reduce the number of incidents during the holiday period.

Christmas is the most dangerous time of the year with more fires occurring in households with gas appliances on Christmas Day than on any other single day in the calendar.

Paul Durose, Joint CEO of Gas Tag, said: “We all know how busy it gets at this time of year, but taking time out from our hectic schedule to ensure our appliances are safe could be a life-saver.

“Research tells us that fewer than five per cent of households put a gas safety check on their to-do list during the festive season, but it really should be the number one priority.”

Gas Safe Register, the official gas registration organisation for the UK, says almost a fifth of households do not have their gas appliances legally checked, meaning as many as 12 million people could be living with dangerous appliances.

The warning coincides with the drop in temperatures which increases the likelihood of people falling victim to carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning.

According to new data from the Gas Safety Trust, there were 20 accidental CO poisoning incidents in Britain during 2015/16, resulting in the deaths of five people – four of whom were over the age of 60. All of the deaths occurred between September 2015 and January 2016.

Gas Tag, a company behind technology that ensures the highest standards of gas safety compliance, says it is vital any inspections are carried out only by Gas Safe registered engineers.

Paul Durose added: “It remains far too easy for non-Gas Safe registered engineers to either carry out or, worst case scenario, pretend to carry out work on gas appliances.

“Surely, in 2017, it should be totally unacceptable that people are being put at risk of injury or death as a result of shoddy or non-existent work.”

Worryingly, one in five people who employ a tradesperson to work on a gas appliance do not check their ID card or qualifications.

Gas Tag has been developed to ensure that the correct work is carried out on gas appliances at the appropriate time, by the right engineers. As soon as a physical Gas Tag is installed on the gas outlet in a property it tracks all the property’s gas appliances, services and installations – and can only be used by a qualified Gas Safe registered engineer.

Each engineer is allowed to evidence their competency, and their completed job gets uploaded to a centralised portal where the data can be monitored. Illegal gas fitters are unable to access the Gas Tag app and are not able to carry out any work through the Gas Tag portal.