A CHORLEY building firm has been fined £4,000 after its work led to a pregnant woman showing signs of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Topflite (North West) Ltd, based in Steeley Lane, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after the flue for the Kirkby couple’s gas fire was found to have been blocked by rubble during a loft conversion in a neighbouring property.

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Liverpool Magistrates’ Court heard the building work had been carried out by the company, which trades at Topflite Loft Conversions, in the summer of 2013.

A few months later the eight-month pregnant woman turned on her gas fire for the first time that winter, and spent most of the afternoon and evening in the lounge with her friend, and later her husband. The couple went to bed at 11pm but overnight the woman was vomiting and had flu-like symptoms.

She spent the following day in bed and her husband also felt nauseous all day. They suspected they may have suffered carbon monoxide poisoning and contacted a Gas Safe registered company.

It was found that the flue in the cavity wall between the two properties, which allowed fumes to escape through a vent on the roof, had become blocked by rubble, and when an HSE inspector visited the neighbouring property, she found that a steel beam installed in the loft had broken through the flue and caused it to become blocked.

Topflite (North West) Ltd was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £1,276 in prosecution costs after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 on 26 February 2015.

The company was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Safety inspector Jacqueline Western said: “It’s vital that builders carefully consider the risks of any work they do in people’s homes, and that includes the impact it could have on attached properties. The work should have been properly planned so that the new steel beam could be installed without affecting the flue.

“Building firms have a legal duty to ensure the lives of both their workers and people affected by their work are not put at risk as a result of their actions. Topflite failed to meet that requirement and found itself in court as a result.”