Health & Safety

The aim, with LPG, was to improve boater safety by reviewing key elements of gas safety, while linking design, commissioning and maintenance together as crucial factors to gas system success. There is scant academic work existing that relates to the inland waterways, and virtually no academic research into gas safety on boats. It is hoped this project will open the debate and encourage other projects.

Why LPG on boats?:

• LPG is in widespread use on boats for cooking and heating: with an estimated 60,800 of 80,000 vessels, or 76% understood to have LPG systems.
• The sector is undergoing demographic change: it’s estimated the liveaboard population has grown from 15% in 2011, to 27% in 2020 (CRT research).
• There are areas of intense concentration of liveaboard boaters, for example there are an estimated 5,000 liveaboard vessels in London alone (CRT research in 2018), mainly off-grid and using LPG daily.
• Correct gas system installation, testing and maintenance is obviously crucial to safety.
• But it’s not just fire and explosion risk, longer term health considerations, such as chronic CO exposure and other products of combustion e.g. formaldehydes, needs to be considered.
• Academic work in other sectors shows link between neurological illness and poor appliance operation; Prof Ben Croxford is a notable author in this area.

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