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New Gas Scheme
Rules published
By Jason Treseder, Senior Gas Engineer,
Type A Gas Appliance & Component Safety
All Type A gas appliances sold in Australia
are required to meet minimum levels of
safety and performance, which are set out
in a range of Australian Standards.
Ensuring that all appliances sold comply
with these requirements is achieved through
approved certification schemes.
New Scheme Rules have been published
that apply to all gas product certification schemes.
The rules aim to ensure regulatory expectations
are clearly outlined and that a consistent outcome
is achieved.
The current certification scheme ensures a
representative sample of a gas appliance design
is assessed against the requirements of the
relevant product standard.
The certification scheme also requires audits
that routinely compare products being sold to the
certified design, to ensure the appliance has not
changed from the tested and certified design.
Once the appliance has successfully undergone
the certification process, the appliance is marked
with an approval badge.
The industry and public use this badge
as an indicator that the appliance is certified,
and therefore legal to sell and install.
Appliance certification details are made
available on a publically searchable database
to verify that a specified model has the appropriate
approvals.
Certification performed by an independent
company must ensure its certification scheme
is accepted by Energy Safe Victoria (ESV) and
all other Australian states and territories for
compliance against each regulatory requirement.
Currently, recognised certification bodies
include the Australian Gas Association (AGA),
SAI Global, IAPMO, Global-Mark and Vipac.
Under the new Scheme Rules, all individual
schemes will require consistency with the Scheme
Rules to retain recognition.
Many of the Scheme Rules requirements
reflect current certification practice. However,
there are a number of significant changes,
listed below.
Important changes to Scheme Rules
» » All gas appliances will be required to be
marked with a national gas complianc