Boiler Repairs

Providing your home with hot water and keeping yourselves warm is the primary reason for having a boiler. Unfortunately, there could be a lot of reasons for this to happen. Perhaps the pilot light isn’t on, the diaphragm is faulty, a valve has failed, there’s a leak in the central heating system, or even your thermostat isn’t set to an adequate temperature.

Central heating systems are complicated, for a radiator to not warm up there could be a couple problems. Firstly, there could be air in the radiator, which can be released by using a bleed key. Read our instructional article if you’d like to find out how to bleed a radiator. If there’s cold spots in the radiator, the system water could be dirty, which could need a powerflush to resolve. Radiator valves also could be a cause, which would need replacing.

London is notorious for having hard water, just look into your kettle and you’ll see the impact this has on your utilities. Kettling is where limescale builds up and causes issues to the boiler system and damage to the heat exchanger. To overcome this, it’s a scale reducer can be installed to remove the build up from the system, as well as a powerflush to clean the system.

Banging noises indicate that something is passing through the system, knocking as it goes along. This could range from debris, sludge and even air. Furthermore, scale build up and low water pressure can create banging and rattling noises.

The pilot light indicates that the boiler has fired up and trying to heat the water being passed through it. Perhaps there’s a broken thermocouple or the gas valve is faulty. Draughts can also blow the flame out if there is a break in the air seal. Lastly, there could be debris that is stopping the pilot light from firing properly and will need to be cleaned.

The majority of the time, if your boiler is losing pressure then it is from a leak in the central heating system. Beyond that, there could be an issue with the pressure relief valve or the expansion vessel.

If your heating system makes use of a condensate pipe that draws water away from the boiler, this can sometimes freeze. If this happens, often a blockage will occur and the boiler will fail.

As a thermostat gets older it can begin to fail and provide inaccurate temperature readings. If the thermostat can’t tell how warm it is, then it won’t be able to keep the room at a steady temperature, turning the boiler on and off at the wrong times.

Seals are the most common reasons for a boiler to have a leak. Over time they can get damaged and degrade, meaning water will eventually leak out – particularly under high pressure.

The boiler will switch itself off to avoid causing further damage and harm to the system, as well as other reasons. Low water pressure, air in the system, and a blocked condensate pipe can all cause this issue.