Best one off boiler repair options

dale_martins

The central heating in my house isn’t working throughout. The upstairs radiators come on but not the downstairs ones, unless the upstairs ones are switched off. I’m suspecting the pump needs repairing/replacing but am concerned getting a plumber in will result in a sky high bill and possibly unjustified at that.

Is there a way this can be at least trouble shooted, and even fixed, by me or are there any recommended one off repair services? SSE offer an ‘all in’ parts and labour £150 which sounds reasonable to me. Has anyone used this service, SSE?

British Gas offer a similar service but seems much less straight forward and potentially much more expensive since the bill could come to somewhere between £79 and £400+. A bit of a gamble.

Many thanks

Ebe_Scrooge

Has this just recently started happening, or has it always been like this ?


The first - and simplest - thing to do is bleed all the radiators. Having said that, if there was air in the system I'd have thought the dowstairs rads would work but not the upstairs, as the air would tend to migrate upwards. However, there's nothing lost by trying it, and it'll cost you nowt - unless you need to buy a bleed key for about 50p.


Secondly, check the TRVs if fitted. It's not uncommon for the pin to become stuck ( especially after having been not used for a while over the summer ).


Thirdly - and, in my opinion, more likely from your description - the system may just need balancing. Especially if you say the downstairs rads work when the upstairs ones are switched off. It's a time-consuming but not difficult task - plenty of tutorials online.


It's unusual for a system to get so badly unbalanced, which is why I ask if it's ever worked properly. But if the first 2 options don't help that would be my next suspicion.