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Things aren’t working quite as they should.
There’s an annoying (and worrying?) noise coming from your boiler. Your boiler is losing pressure. There is a myriad of reasons why you might start to wonder: ‘Should I call a boiler engineer?’
However, along with that musing comes a worrying sense of money being spent unnecessarily, or having to wait in, and general disruption to everyday life. So how do you know when you should call an engineer and when you can do some simple fixes yourself?
Quick fire heating and boiler solutions
There’s a good reason to run through a few checks yourself before you call an engineer. This will ensure that you get the right help if you discover you do in fact need the help of a professional.
Go through these checks and you may discover that you don’t need to call an engineer after all:
Cold: Is it freezing outside? Have you woken up to no hot water or heating? If so, pop on a sweater and go and look on the external wall immediately behind the boiler. You’ll see a small condensate pipe. This little pipe can freeze causing the boiler to shut down.
Power: Check your boiler actually has power to it at the main fuse board. It may just be a case of a tripped fuse and a reset will get things going again. If it repeatedly trips then check if this is a wider household problem, or isolated to the boiler. If it’s just the boiler then it’s time to call a heating engineer.
Gas: Check that the emergency control valve of your gas supply is open. If there’s no gas flowing, it may be a wider gas problem, rather than a specific boiler problem. Check with neighbours and your gas supplier to rule out a wider gas problem.
Pilot light: Older boiler models have a visible pilot light. It may have simply blown out. Use your boiler manual to reignite it. Modern boilers can reset the pilot light by pressing the deblocking button, but they should restart automatically. If the pilot light continues to blow out, or is burning orange/yellow instead of blue, then call a heating engineer.
Check the controls: You’d be surprised how many call outs heating engineers get because another household member has fiddled with the thermostatic and timing controls! Take a look at the boiler settings and check that these are set correctly. Additionally, you can try setting the thermostat up a few degrees simply to see if the boiler comes on.
Press reset: A modern boiler is designed with various safety devices which can be activated, stopping the boiler. Often all that now needs to be done is to press the reset button on the front of the boiler.
Pressure: A highly common problem is that a boiler is losing, or has lost, pressure. Take a look at the pressure gauge and align this with the instructions in the manual. You may be able to manually correct the pressure. If the system continues to lose pressure, this could indicate a leak and you should therefore call a boiler engineer.
Radiator valves: Similarly to household members fiddling with thermostatic and timing controls, they may have fiddled with radiator valves. Go to each radiator and check the valves are set as you expect.
When to call a boiler engineer
If you’ve gone through all of the above simple steps and your boiler and heating are still not working then it is time to call a boiler engineer. Stop investigating, and certainly don’t take off the front of the boiler to investigate further.
A good boiler engineer will be able to offer basic advice over the phone, and also prioritise your call. You can request that they come at a time to suit you if you are unable to wait in.
Prevent last minute boiler panic
The simplest solution is to have a boiler Care Service Plan in place. Not only will this provide boiler servicing to help reduce the need for call outs, they also ensure you never pay call out fees, just for the work to fix the problem.
If in doubt, call a boiler engineer you can trust, such as Ecosafe on 0333 939 0161.
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