When temperatures drop below freezing, a modern boiler can suddenly stop working. A frozen condensate pipe is one of the most common causes, and it is often simple to deal with safely.
Low pressure gets most of the attention, but a boiler can run too high as well. Here is what is normal, what causes high pressure and what you can safely check.
A noisy boiler is telling you something. Here’s what the common sounds usually mean, what you can check yourself, and when to call a Gas Safe engineer.
A boiler on its last legs rarely fails all at once — it tends to warn you first. Knowing the signs helps you replace on your terms rather than in a cold-weather emergency. For the record, we repair far more boilers than we replace.
Boilers tend to fail when they’re worked hardest — the first proper cold snap. The good news is that most winter breakdowns are avoidable with a few simple habits through the year.
If a radiator is warm at the bottom but cold at the top, trapped air is the usual cause — and bleeding it is one of the few heating jobs you can safely do yourself. Here’s how.
When a boiler breaks down, the first question is usually the hardest: is it worth fixing, or am I throwing good money after bad? There’s no single answer — but a few honest questions get you most of the way there. And for the record, we fix far more boilers than we replace.
It’s a peculiar one: taps run piping hot but the radiators stay cold, or the heating’s fine but there’s no hot water.
The boiler’s firing, the thermostat’s up, but the radiators are stubbornly cold. It’s a frustrating one — and the good news is the cause is usually easy to narrow down once you know where the cold is.
If you’ve noticed the pressure needle sitting lower than it should — or your heating has gone off altogether — you’re not alone.
