Commercial Gas Services for Leicester Businesses

Food manufacturing and process gas

Food production is one of the main users of process gas in Leicester. Fryers, tunnel ovens, steam boilers and dryers run for long shifts, and downtime is expensive.

Sites at Beaumont Leys, Braunstone Frith, Hamilton and Troon Way typically need:

• New gas supplies to additional production lines
• Tightness testing after pipework alterations
• Nitrogen purging on larger diameter pipework
• Recommissioning after planned maintenance shutdowns
• Accurate gas line diagrams and test records for audits

We plan isolations and purge routes with your engineering team in advance. Our team works seven days a week, so the work can be fitted into weekend or overnight production gaps.

Older factory buildings and redundant pipework

The city's hosiery and boot trade left behind hundreds of brick factory buildings, especially around Frog Island, St Margaret's and the Cultural Quarter. Many are now split into smaller textile units, studios, offices or flats.

These buildings often contain gas pipework from several previous uses. Some of it is still live, even where the appliances were removed years ago.

Why should old pipework be decommissioned?

A disused pipe that is still connected to the supply holds gas. It can corrode, be struck during building work, or confuse anyone trying to test the system later.

Gas decommissioning deals with this properly. The redundant section is isolated and purged, then cut back to a live valve or tee, capped and labelled. The pipework records are updated so the next engineer knows what is there.

We recommend this before any conversion, strip-out or demolition.

Restaurants, takeaways and sweet shops

Belgrave Road and Melton Road, known as the Golden Mile, have one of the busiest concentrations of restaurants, sweet centres and caterers in the Midlands. The city centre, Narborough Road and London Road add many more.

Commercial kitchens need more than a connected cooker. The pipework must be tested, the ventilation must be adequate, and a gas interlock is normally required so that gas cannot flow unless the extraction is running.

Our commercial catering service covers installation, testing and commissioning. We also issue commercial gas certificates following inspection.

What is involved in tightness testing and purging?

Tightness testing confirms that pipework does not leak. The section is isolated, pressurised and monitored with a calibrated gauge. The permitted pressure drop depends on the pipe volume and where the pipe runs.

Strength testing is carried out on new pipework at a higher pressure before it is connected.

Gas purging replaces the contents of the pipe. Air is replaced with gas during commissioning. Gas is replaced with air or nitrogen during decommissioning. The purge is vented to a safe place outdoors and checked with a gas detector.

All of this follows IGEM/UP/1, or IGEM/UP/1A for smaller low pressure systems. There is more detail on our gas testing and gas purging page.

Offices, campuses, hospitals and venues

Beyond manufacturing, we work on boiler plant and pipework across Leicester for:

• The two universities and their student accommodation
• The hospital sites in the city centre, Glenfield and Evington
• Retail centres and leisure venues
• The football and rugby stadiums, which have multiple kitchens and plant rooms
• Business parks at Meridian, Grove Park and Watermead

We also install and maintain commercial heating systems.

New pipework and underground supplies

New commercial gas pipework is installed to IGEM/UP/2. For sites with several buildings, buried polyethylene pipework is often the most practical way to link them. Our underground gas pipework page explains the process.

Where a connection has to be made to a live pipe and a shutdown is not possible, gas hot tapping may be an option.

Who should you contact before digging in Leicester?

It depends where the site is.

Inside the city boundary, Leicester City Council is the highway authority. A street works permit or a section 50 licence is normally needed before excavating in a public road or footway.

Many business parks sit just outside that boundary. Meridian Business Park and Enderby are in Blaby district, and Oadby and Wigston has its own borough council. In these areas the highway authority is Leicestershire County Council.

The M1 and M69 are managed by National Highways. Work on private land does not need a highway permit, but a utility search and ground scan should always be done first.

Who is responsible for the gas supply?

The local gas network is operated by Cadent. Cadent owns the service pipe as far as the emergency control valve, and your supplier or meter operator owns the meter.

Applications for a new connection or a bigger supply are made to Cadent or through a registered utility infrastructure provider. Pipework after the meter is the responsibility of the owner or occupier, and this is where we work.

If you smell gas, call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 without delay.

Gas leaks and urgent repairs

After an emergency isolation, the supply normally stays off until the fault has been repaired and the pipework retested. We offer emergency gas repairs for commercial premises in Leicester, followed by testing and purging so that production or trading can restart.

Do we cover areas outside Leicester?

Yes. We cover all city postcodes from LE1 to LE5, together with Oadby, Wigston, Braunstone, Enderby, Blaby and Syston.

Gas Main Installation also works across the county, including Loughborough in LE11, Hinckley in LE10, Coalville, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough. Our services are available throughout the UK, so multi-site businesses can use one provider.