Electrics and gas
LPG cylinders are stored in the cellar and the surveyor did not test the installation. What gas-safety inspection is still required?
A gas-safety inspection of the LPG installation is still required. The cylinders are stored in the cellar, and the surveyor did not test the installation. The survey has recorded the storage place and the limit. It has not checked regulators, pipework, or ventilation, and it has not decided the arrangement is acceptable. LPG is heavier than air, so a cellar is a poor place to keep cylinders, but that observation is not the inspection. The test the surveyor did not do is still outstanding.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
Storing cylinders below ground level leaves any leaked gas with nowhere easy to disperse, because the vapour sinks. The surveyor could see that the cylinders were in the cellar. Seeing them is not a tightness test, not a check of hoses and regulators, and not a record from a gas engineer. The home survey does not certify LPG. Gas Safe registration is the route for gas work, and HSE gas-safety material is about competent work on gas fittings, not about a survey glance standing in for that work.
Ask a Gas Safe registered engineer to inspect the LPG installation, including where the cylinders are kept. Tell the solicitor the survey found cylinders in the cellar and did not test them. Do not move the problem onto a later buyer as if the report had cleared it. Keep any seller's comment that the cylinders are rarely used separate from an inspection that has not happened.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- How many LPG cylinders were stored in the cellar, and where?
- Which parts of the installation did you not test?
- What gas-safety inspection is still required after this visual note?
What are the typical next steps?
- Ask a Gas Safe engineer to inspect the LPG installation and the cellar storage.
- Tell the solicitor the cylinders were seen and the installation was not tested.
- Do not treat the seller's comment that they are rarely used as that inspection.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
If the cylinders are taken out of the cellar later, does this report become the inspection?
No. Taking the cylinders out after the visit may change the house, but it does not rewrite this report, and it is not the gas-safety inspection that was missing. The survey recorded storage in the cellar and did not test the installation. An engineer still has to look at the fittings if you need that inspection.
If a landlord gas record is in the pack, did the survey test the installation?
No. A landlord-style gas record, if one exists, is a paper from someone else's visit. The surveyor did not test this installation and did not adopt that paper as their own inspection. Ask to see any record through the solicitor, and still treat the cellar storage as untested by the home survey.