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Central heating problems

Hi All

I might be jumping the gun a bit here but I want to gather some facts on a central heating issue.

I've posted a couple of times lately about how cold our house is even with the heating on full whack and how much its costing and that we have a horrific problem with mould and I've received some good advice.

This morning a plumber came to do the gas safety check (a few months late!) and has told us there is a problem with the burn pressure on the boiler.

I don't know anything about the mechanics of a heating system would this be an explanation for the house not getting sufficiently warm? Is it safe? My husbands bled the radiators quite a few times over the years and also topped up the water pressure on the boiler which was slowly dropping, but we didn't know anything about burn pressure.

Just to let you know we've been telling the landlord for almost 3 years that the house was not getting warm enough - it takes 4 hours on full heat to get the nip out of the air and has cost us a small fortune to the point we'd considered moving.

Any help would be appreciated.
I am a Mortgage Adviser

You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a mortgage adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.

Comments

  • I'm guessing burn pressure is something to do with the gas pressure. So low burn pressure may mean the boiler isn't heating effectively (emphasis on guess here, I am not a gas safe engineer!). As you've had a plumber do the gas safety check which it presumably passed that's the best assurance you're going to get that it's safe.

    One thing you can check is how quickly the heating circuit is warming up. You should be able to identify two thick pipes coming out of the boiler. These circulate hot water around the raditors. With the system cold switch on the heating, one of these pipes should start to warm up quickly (this is the flow, hot radiator water coming out of the boiler), the other will start cold but eventually warm up (this is the return water coming back to the boiler after circulating through radiators).

    If the boiler is doing it's job the flow should warm up and get hot very quickly. The return will take longer but if it's taking more than a few minute to detect any noticable change it indicates a problem. Eventually the return should be getting almost as hot as the flow.

    Be careful these pipes can get HOT! Tap the pipe with the back of your hand first to test temperature.

    You can also check the boiler controls you should have a temperature dial (seperate to the house thermostat) that sets how hot the radiator water gets. Try turning this up.

    It could just be the heating is working ok but the house is poorly insulated. Or the boiler itself is fine but the radiators are too small.
  • MortgageMamma
    MortgageMamma Posts: 6,686 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Thanks, I'm going to send this link to my husband and get him to check, however after speaking to the plumber when he returned its apparently a case of the gas was being put into the boiler too quickly it seems. Would this have the opposite affect?
    I am a Mortgage Adviser

    You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a mortgage adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.
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