Test your central heating now!

davehills

Now the weather is a tad colder, it's well worth taking the opportunity to (Briefly) test your central heating, by firing it up.

By putting the heating on it will 'exercise' the pump and valves and should stop them from seizing up. Check for leaky pipes and radiators. Turn thermostatic valves back and forth to prevent them sticking.

If you find a fault you can spend time getting quotes; plumbers tend to get booked up when the cold weather arrives; at the moment they are scratching around for work. Haggle for the best price!

Also check the stop valve under the sink. Turn it off then on again. Doing this a couple of times a year and it will prevent it from sticking. Having a stop tap replaced can be expensive!

Do it now while the weather is warm(ish). Trust me, far better than finding a problem in the winter!!

I_have_spoken

My heatings been on for a week here in Glasgow

macman

Excellent post.
If you have a modern Honeywell programmer, you can enable 'pump exercise' via the installer menu. Mine fires up the CH pump for just a few seconds each day at midday to help prevent it sticking over the summer..
I'd imagine that other brands have a similar facility?

davehills

I haven't seen that feature before, but what a good idea. I did toy with the idea of adding a push button for that very purpose but doubt I'll ever get round to it.

societys_child

I've a Vokera boiler that fires its self up for a few minutes if the heating hasn't been used for a while.

cyclonebri1

To be honest, I think it better to run the heating up once a month all through the summer to ensure a few heat cycles.

Of course the boiler gets an exercise from the hot water circuit if you have a combi boiler, but the problems usually lie with the rad system

Southend1

Just put mine on for a bit, thanks for the reminder

diywhynot

Best time of year to have boiler and central heating system servicing done...keeps us busy with rates the same as the heating season.;)

macman

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

To be honest, I think it better to run the heating up once a month all through the summer to ensure a few heat cycles.

Of course the boiler gets an exercise from the hot water circuit if you have a combi boiler, but the problems usually lie with the rad system

Indeed. The main purpose is to run the pump, which means putting on the CH.

cyclonebri1

macman wrote: »

Indeed. The main purpose is to run the pump, which means putting on the CH.

Yes that's right, but the pump does actually run when the HW is requested assuming it's a combi.

I'll clarify that, it runs to prevent boiling in the boiler as the water is switched off??, pretty sure that's how it works?