Is heating on/water off ok?

ripplyuk

When I’m going away for a few days, I like to turn the water off at the mains in case of flood. I used to have to turn the stopc0ck thingy but now there’s a handy switch on the wall. At this time of year, I don’t want to turn the heating off in case of frozen or burst pipes so I usually leave it to come on for a few hours at 15 Celsius.

Will this cause problems? Can the heating still work without the water? I don’t have a condenser boiler. It’s the old type with tanks of water in the loft and it’s oil heating.

tonyh66

Heating is a closed circuit it does not need mains water.

molerat

tonyh66 wrote: »

Heating is a closed circuit it does not need mains water.

Not from what op describes, they have an open vented system. That said there is little chance of the system running dry over a few days.

datostar

molerat wrote: »

Not from what op describes, they have an open vented system. That said there is little chance of the system running dry over a few days.

And there should be a small header tank up in the loft for the heating system which will keep the system topped up. We survived a few years with a seized ballcock valve on ours which wouldn't shut off so I had to turn off the supply to it. I used to go up a couple of times a year to turn the feed back on and top up the header tank. It never ran dry. Had it fixed when the hot water cylinder started leaking and had to be replaced.

chiny

One of my brothers, who plans to spend a few weeks somewhere warmer this UK winter, was worried about this issue, so has installed a cheapie webcam on his attic tank to keep an eye on the water level. “Better safe than sorry” he tells me.