A WOMAN is urging householders to ensure they use qualified gas fitters after her family was nearly poisoned by dangerous fumes and her home was flooded by faulty central heating.

Korrine Boaro, of Rushden Road, Smithills, hired a gas fitter to install a new boiler and gas fire last November.

She believed he was registered under the new Gas Safe Register system, but didn’t check.

Shortly afterwards, the family said they started suffering headaches and tiredness, which are signs of potentially fatal carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ms Boaro, aged 52, lives with partner 56-year-old Barry Howarth and children Nathan, aged 25, and Ananya, aged 14.

The fitter also left the house in a mess, with water leaking through a ceiling that ruined upstairs and downstairs carpets.

At one point, scalding water spurted out of the boiler which burned Nathan, who works at Bolton’s Shakespeare Foundry.

The hot water narrowly missed their three-year-old granddaughter, Ceira.

The couple had paid £2,500 for the faulty work — and have since spent the same again on repairs, new carpets, wiring and decorating.

Qualified workers later found that a flue was not installed correctly and the gas fire was not connected properly.

Mrs Boaro, a Bolton Hospice care assistant, said: “We could have easily been killed by the fumes, which you can’t smell.

“Thankfully the rooms are quite tall and we often have the doors open. If we’d kept them shut, we could have died.

“People should check that fitters are Gas Safe registered. I just hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

She decided not to take action against the fitter.

An investigation by the Gas Safe Register in the North West found that homes in Bolton are most at risk from dangerous gas appliances, mainly gas fires.

In the last 12 months, it has inspected more than 8,000 appliances in the region with eight per cent found to be unsafe. In the Bolton postcode area 10 per cent of appliances were dangerous.

Across the UK, 4,000 people go to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms annually and there were more than 50 deaths last year. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, nausea, breathlessness, collapse and loss of consciousness.

Carbon monoxide is colourless, odourless and tasteless.

Gas Safe Register has launched a new online gas advice website and map at silentkiller.co.uk.