Preparing Your Boiler For Winter

Winter is when you need your heating most so conducting checks in autumn can seriously reduce the chances of a breakdown as all repairs can be completed before winter. The chances of your boiler malfunctioning and breaking down are increased during the colder months as your heating system has hardly been used throughout the summer.

We’d recommend scheduling a boiler service before winter bites, that way all problems will be identified and resolved before it’s too late. A boiler service involves a thorough inspection of the boiler and heating system, checking its efficiency and ensuring money isn’t wasted on heating bills.

The colder nights throughout October and November provide the perfect opportunity to run a preliminary test on your central heating; you can discover if it’s fully functioning before the harsh winter conditions arrive. You can do this by switching on all the systems heating components, radiators and allowing them to heat up.

Radiators are an important feature of your heating system, therefore ensuring they are working efficiently is essential. When your heating is on, ensure they are heating up fully, if they are cold towards the bottom, this can indicate trapped air. You can release this trapped air yourself by reading our guide to bleeding radiators.

You should also check if you have pipe insulation, this is a simple and cost-effective method to eliminate the chances of frozen pipes. Frozen pipes are caused when the heat from the water is transferred to the freezing air. This continuing process will eventually cause the pipes to rupture. For more information look at our frozen pipes explained blog.

Another check you can conduct is your boilers water pressure as if the systems pressure is too high or too low, it impacts on the heating performance. When the system is cold, your boiler should be within 1 and 1.5 bar on the pressure gauge. When your boiler is running with a low water pressure it will also be running with a low efficiency and additionally increasing your heating bills. This is not what you need on the way up to Christmas, so you must constantly monitor your water pressure. Instructions will be found in your manufactures guide. However, if the pressure keeps fluctuating, seek advice from a gas safety engineer.

Cold air can seep in your home through gaps in the doors and windows which are known as draughts. They can rack up your heating bills as thermostats are turned up higher and your heating is kept on for a lot longer. A cost-effective method to reduce the amount of air sneaking in is to purchase draught excluders and draught proof stripes for your door frames.

Leaving boiler checks until last minute or not checking them at all can lead to a broken boiler. Therefore, is it essential to carry out checks to ensure your boiler is fully functioning. Additionally, gas engineers are always hectic during the winter which means if anything does go wrong, it can be difficult to find an engineer, leaving many people without heating.

If your boiler or heating system fails at any point during the winter, we aim to get you toasty again as soon as possible. At Complheat, our Gas Safe Registered team pride ourselves in our integrity and our track record of an extremely high quality of work.  Get in touch to arrange work by our engineers in Merseyside & arrange a time and date suitable for you.