Let’s start with Vipers Domestic Natural Gas Handbook, lovingly referred to as the viper book which is written by two ex British Gas Trainers. Originally in a black and white spiral bound book which in recent years has been updated to a full colour ring binder now including all the relevant core safety subjects as well as chapters covering the six most popular ACS appliance subjects.

It will cost you £39 direct from www.vipergas.co.uk containing 471 pages broken up into 19 chapters. I was first introduced to the Viper book just over five years ago and since then I have used it extensively during training and assessments and it has been the publication of choice for many in the industry.

Concerns

Recently I have started to question its contents as well as the opinions of its authors. There are hundreds of good colour pictures that I have found invaluable during training particularly within the chapter of controls. On the down side there are a number of areas which are based solely on the opinions of the author and I feel a couple of areas concern me.

One of these is on page D7 which covers shut down times for flame supervision devices which in the latest addition are different to those stated in the CORGI manual without any acceptable explanation as to why this has happened.

The viper book is often seen as required reading and reference material for sitting the domestic ACS which a number of years ago I would have agreed with but I think lately this is no longer the case and the manual seems to have slipped back into the general information category rather then essential reading.

The fact that the book is in loose leaf form is a winning style from the start. Amongst other things it is updatable which can never be achieved using a bound publication. There is even a page included to register your viper book if you are not connected to the World Wide Web.

CORGI

The CORGI Domestic Gas Safety Manual lovingly referred to as the CORGI manual is next and consists of 446 pages which are broken up into 21 chapters. The CORGI manual is slightly smaller than the Viper book and includes LPG, definitions plus useful data but no mention of appliances.

First indications are that there is more information on the basic subjects such as flues and ventilation which I like and because of this I think its better suited to the ACS assessments.

One area that it did not compare to the Viper book was the pictures but with the release of Edition Four this has been addressed and the pictures are now probably on a par with the Viper book.

I also find the usual draw backs with any CORGI publications with too much unrelated advertising not only from third parties but CORGI themselves. Listing all their other publications as well as referring to them in relevant parts of the manual, instead of containing the relevant information.

Being a bound book this puts a number of people off because of how often things change in the gas industry and the thought of paying £25 from www.corgi-direct.com every time something changes is really too much. I believe now you no longer receive a free copy of the manual when you register with CORGI and I wonder if this has increased their sales or it has seen more people move towards other reference material such as the Viper book.

However

Personally I’ll be keeping hold of my viper book but stuffed in a draw somewhere around here will be a CORGI manual that every now and again I’ll have a peep at just to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

I’d like to know about your preferred reference material even if it is not one of the above mentioned - gasg20@btinternet.com