A pub cellar is the most hazardous room in the building and the one staff think about least. It holds pressurised gas cylinders, caustic cleaning chemicals, heavy kegs, cold wet floors and often a steep drop through a hatch. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 puts a duty on the employer to keep it safe, and the practical answer is a daily and weekly checklist done by the team who use it. So the real question about a pub cellar safety checklist is not which app has the most features. It is which tool gets the gas-alarm check and the line clean recorded at the hatch, and a failure in front of the manager the same day.
Guide · Hospitality
Pub cellar safety checklist app for the UK.
A practical guide to recording cellar safety, gas alarm checks, line cleaning and keg handling in a pub, from the clipboard on the cellar wall to a WhatsApp workflow your bar team already knows.
14-day free trial. No card required.
The point
The checklist does not make the cellar safe.
A working gas alarm and a trained team do. A cellar check is only worth doing if a silent CO2 alarm or a leaking keg coupler reaches the manager the same day and gets fixed. Software makes the check easier to complete at the cellar hatch, harder to skip an item, and faster to escalate. Nobody should be signing off a cellar log from memory after service.
Three shapes of tool
Pick the one that fits your bar.
Clipboard on the wall
The cellar checklist sheet
Familiar and free. Also easily ignored, quickly out of date, and invisible to an area manager who is not in the building when the gas alarm fails.
General audit appsiAuditor, GoAudits
Built for any inspection, not for a pub cellar. Flexible, but each template needs setup and training, and per-seat pricing adds up fast across a shift-work team.
Conversation-basedQuickler on WhatsApp
The cellar safety checklist arrives as a WhatsApp chat. Nothing to install. A failed gas alarm or a line-clean overdue flags to the area manager the moment it is entered.
The real risk
CO2 and nitrogen can kill silently.
A cellar is a confined-ish space full of gas cylinders. A CO2 or mixed-gas leak displaces oxygen and gives no warning, which is why gas alarms and a safe system of work matter. Caustic line-cleaning chemicals are a COSHH risk, and full kegs are a manual-handling one. The checklist is how a busy team keeps all three under control.
Run cellar checks on WhatsApp
No app install. No training.
Your bar team uses the phone they already have. Text, voice note or a photo of the gas alarm panel. The cellar record generates itself. Setup to first live workflow usually takes under a week.
The short version
- A pub cellar checklist covers gas alarms and cylinder safety, line cleaning and its caustic chemicals, keg handling, cellar cooling and temperature, floors and access.
- The main killer risk is CO2 or mixed-gas asphyxiation: leaking gas displaces oxygen with no smell or warning, so a working gas alarm is essential.
- Line-cleaning chemicals are a COSHH risk and full kegs are a manual-handling risk; both belong on the checklist.
- The employer's duty comes from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and supporting regulations; a cellar is often treated with confined-space caution.
- Per-report pricing beats per-seat for a shift-work bar team or a pub group, because adding staff is free.
- The checklist does not make the cellar safe. A working alarm, trained staff and acting on the finding do.
The point
What a pub cellar safety checklist is actually for
A cellar checklist is the daily and weekly routine that keeps a genuinely dangerous room under control: confirm the gas alarm is powered and in date, check cylinders are secured and connections sound, verify the cellar cooling and temperature, complete and log line cleaning, keep floors dry and the hatch guarded, and handle kegs safely. The employer's general duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, together with regulations on COSHH, manual handling and gas, sits behind all of it.
The checklist does not make the cellar safe. A working alarm, a trained team and acting on the finding do. What a checklist tool does is make each item easier to complete correctly at the hatch, harder to skip, and faster to get in front of the manager or area manager. The tool's only job is to make on-the-spot completion and same-day escalation the path of least resistance.
The killer risk
CO2, nitrogen and gas alarms
The reason a cellar deserves its own regime is asphyxiation. Carbon dioxide and nitrogen used to dispense beer are heavier-than-air or oxygen-displacing gases, and a leak from a cylinder, coupler or line can lower the oxygen level in a poorly ventilated cellar with no smell and no warning. A fixed gas alarm, ventilation, secured cylinders and a rule never to enter on a sounding alarm are the controls. Many operators treat cellar entry with confined-space caution.
Quickler carries the gas-alarm test, the cylinder check and the ventilation check as workflow items, records the result with a photo of the alarm panel, and flags a failed or out-of-date alarm to the manager the moment it is entered. It records that the safe system was followed. It is not a gas detector or a fixed alarm, and it does not replace one. Check the current HSE cellar guidance and your own risk assessment.
Chemicals and lifting
Line cleaning and keg handling
Line cleaning uses caustic detergents that are a COSHH hazard: they burn skin and eyes and must be stored, dosed, used and disposed of correctly, with the right PPE and a proper flush before the lines carry beer again. Overdue or skipped line cleaning is both a quality and a safety failure. Moving full kegs, meanwhile, is a manual-handling risk on cold wet floors and steep cellar steps.
Quickler logs the line clean with the date, the product and a confirmation the lines were flushed, and carries the manual-handling and PPE reminders as part of the routine. It records that the task was done to the standard your risk assessment sets. It is not a COSHH assessment or a substitute for training; it evidences that the controls those documents require are actually happening.
Pricing
Per report, not per seat
Most audit apps charge per seat. For a pub, or a group of them, that is the wrong shape: bar staff turn over, shifts rotate, duty managers change, and a per-seat licence taxes every name whether or not they file a cellar check.
Quickler charges per report, with unlimited users on every bundle. Bundles run from Quickler 50 at 50 pounds a month for 50 reports, up to Quickler 500 at 500 pounds a month for 500 reports. Add every bar-team member, duty manager, area manager and admin you like; you pay for the checks you file, not the people who could file them. Pricing is approximate and shifts, so check the current pricing page before you commit.
Questions, answered
What is a pub cellar safety checklist?
It is the daily and weekly routine that keeps a cellar safe: gas alarm and cylinder checks, line cleaning and its chemicals, keg handling, cellar cooling and temperature, floors and access. Options range from a clipboard on the cellar wall, to generic audit apps like iAuditor, to conversation-based tools like Quickler that run the workflow over WhatsApp so there is no app to install.
Why is CO2 dangerous in a pub cellar?
Carbon dioxide and nitrogen used to dispense beer can displace oxygen in a poorly ventilated cellar with no smell or warning, causing asphyxiation. A fixed gas alarm, ventilation, secured cylinders and a rule never to enter on a sounding alarm are the key controls, and many operators treat cellar entry with confined-space caution. Quickler records the gas-alarm check and flags a failure; it is not a gas detector. Check current HSE guidance.
Does Quickler replace a COSHH or cellar risk assessment?
No. Quickler records that the cellar checks, line cleaning and gas-alarm tests your risk assessment and COSHH assessment require are being carried out, as timestamped, photo-backed evidence. It is not itself a risk assessment, a COSHH assessment or a gas alarm, and it does not make the cellar safe. Trained staff, working controls and acting on the finding do.
Can I run cellar checks over WhatsApp?
Yes. Quickler's workflows run over the WhatsApp Business API. The bar-team member receives each question in their existing WhatsApp chat, replies with text, a voice note or a photo of the gas alarm or cylinders, and the completed cellar record generates automatically. No separate app or login is required, and Quickler manages the WhatsApp Business API account on the firm's behalf.