Is your boiler not working? You might need to check the pressure
When your boiler stops working its easy to panic, but there’s no need to! We breakdown a very common boiler issue for you to help you get yourself back up & running!
If your central heating has stopped working, it could be down to something as simple as a loss of water pressure in your system. Your boiler will have a water pressure indicator on the front of it, this should read between one and two bars of atmospheric pressure. If it is below one then your boiler pressure is too low and if it is above 2 then your water pressure is to high.
What to look for
Topping up the pressure in your system is a relatively easy job that you can do yourself. To top up your system pressure, you will need to locate your boilers filling loop. This is usually  a silver/grey coloured flexible hose that has a small valve at each end – it should be underneath your boiler and you might find it looks a little bit like this…
OK, now what?
Once you have found the filling loop you need to follow the next few steps to top up your boiler pressure;
- Make sure that the boiler is switched off and the system has cooled before you start working on it
- The filling loop should have a valve at both ends. Make sure that both ends of the hose are securely attached to both valves before your move any!
- The valves can be opened either by using the tap handles (black in the image above) or by using a flat head screwdriver
- Open both valves to allow the cold mains water into the system. First gently but this might take a bit more depending on your valves
- You should start to head water filling in to your system
- Carefully watch the pressure gauge while filling with water. This should start to rise and you want to close both valves when it reaches 1.5bar. Close one valve at a time.
- Once you have reached the required pressure level, you need to switch your boiler back on and press RESET
Need more info?
Your boiler manual that your gas engineer will have left when fitting your boiler will house a lot more detail on this. It is always advised to read through your boiler manual first. If you do not have this then they are all available online on manufacturer’s websites.
Or you can always watch a quick video from your manufacturer to talk you through step by step how simple this is to do yourself;
If you have completed all of the steps above but still have the same problem, please give our office a call and we can arrange for an engineer to give you a call back. Ensure that you tell them that you have tried out the above as this will help them determine what the issue might be with your boiler and advise the next best action.
Winter is coming! Have your boiler read to keep you nice and warm.
