As a licensed Gas Fitter, Electrician, Type B Gas Fitter, Restricted Electrical or test and tag person, your obligation is to have access to all the relevant Australian standards to effectively complete your work as a licensed person safely and compliantly. It’s the law.
What are the consequences when you do not abide by the respective Code of Practices, Australian Standards, appropriate ACTS regulations and/or manufacturers instructions? You could be held accountable for failing to abide by the respective legislation or standards.
Put simply, someone could die and you could go to jail.
A licensed professional person has certain obligations, having access and knowing which standards and how the standards apply, is your obligation as a licence holder.
This is made clear in the Work Health and Safety (WHS) ACT, which over arches other ACTS and regulations, and somewhere in the WHS ACT it says, there may be a need to not only use mandatory standards called up by the regulators, but other applicable standards or referenced standards .
As an example, when trying to answer the question ‘Can a solid fuel and gas appliance be beneath the same canopy?’ in AS/NZS 5601.1:2013 Amd 4:2020 there is a section on solid fuel appliances beneath a canopy in a commercial kitchen but the clause does not answer the question, the clause references AS/NZS1668, another standard that finally provides the answer.
The example is to demonstrate that there is a reference to another standard that has implications with the installation of a gas appliance under the same canopy as a solid fuel appliance. Now the defect isn’t a gas defect, however if the installation were to proceed and the restaurant burnt down, then the gas installer would be accountable to the insurance company as the insurance would be null and void and would be seeking compensation from the installer for failing to comply to the correct standards – in this case AS/NZS5601.1 but AS/NZS1668 the canopy requirements standard which references the suitability or non suitability of solid fuel and type of standard whether the gas appliance can be installed under the same canopy as the solid fuel device.
Additionally in AS/NZS 5601.1:2013 Amd 4:2020. Appendix R has an update with an alteration to the Spillage Test process,
STOP PRESS: (5th October 2020)
Gas Standards Updates
• AS/NZS 5601.2:2020 Gas Installations – Part 2 : LP Gas installations in caravans and boats for non-propulsive purposes
» AS/NZS 5601.2:2013 was replaced by AS/NZS 5601.2:2020.
• AS/NZS 1596:2014 Amd 2:2020 The storage and handling of LP gas
» AS/NZS 1596:2014 was amended by AS/NZS 1596:2014 Amd 2:2020.
• AS/NZS 5601.1:2013 Amd 4:2020 Gas Installations – Part 1
» AS/NZS 5601.1:2013 was amended by AS/NZS 5601.1:2013 Amd 4:2020.
and AS/NZS5601.1.2013 Amd 4:2020 is the current version and a totally new version to be released during the first half of 2021.
AS/NZS3000 wiring rules, the current version contains all the new amendments in the standard. (even the 1931 versions and all versions/ amendments to 2020)
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