How to Get Your Boiler Ready for Winter

With the cool, damp days of winter upon you, it’s time to have your boilers on-line and working up to maximum capacity efficiently. The demands on the boiler system will be increasing as you move forward through the winter months and you want things to go smoothly and without any downtime. There are some things that you should do to prepare your boiler for winter and if you haven’t already, now is a good time to have inspections to assure that your company and employees can continue to work without interruption and costly downtime.

Hire the Professionals

If your company’s maintenance team can’t do the appropriate maintenance on your boiler system regularly, it’s best to hire a professional who knows what he’s doing, is well-trained, and has years of experience of working with units similar to yours. You can schedule maintenance inspections and checks so that you’ll be able to prevent costly repairs and replacements at the last minute. Establishing a working relationship with a local company is the best solution for all of your boiler needs; they will be available for installations, service, and repairs and will have knowledge of what you have and how it works. This can save you time and money and get the work done quickly for your company.

What You’ll Need to Do or Have Done to Your Boiler

Your service technician will have a list of the appropriate guidelines that are developed for your specific boiler system. He should clean the low water cut-off and inspect it for any developing problems, be sure to have him use new gaskets when he reassembles the boiler unit. He should perform a safety pop test on your boiler’s relief valves, do a leak test, and perform flame checks as well. Other things that you should request or make sure he is doing are to check the following so that he can repair or replace them if needed:

• All gaskets
• The oil gun assembly
• The flame detector
• The main gas valve and regulator
• Strainers
• All hoses and cables
• Pilot valves
• All of the gauges and instrumentation

Gather baseline information, your staff can compare their daily recordings to this data to ascertain if the boiler is continuing to work up to its best level of operation.

Use Only Qualified Technicians and the Right Parts

You’ve made a rather large investment in your company’s boiler system so using qualified professionals and the proper replacement parts is a must for any inspection, repair, or installation work that you have done. The company with which you partner should be gas safe register approved, insured, and have the appropriate accreditation for your unit. You’ll want prompt, reliable service that has no hidden charges or fees that will harm your budget. Click here for further information about types of service that are available and what you need to get your boiler ready for winter or to bring it up to specifications right now.

Avoiding downtime at your company due to boiler problems will keep your employees happy and working, and your inventory rolling out the door efficiently.

Image courtesy of: FreeDigitalPhotos.net –Marcus-

What to do When Your Boiler has a Breakdown

English: Condensing Boiler Exaust (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Would you know what to do if your boiler suddenly broke down leaving your home without heat or hot water?

The short answer is probably not but here’s a quick guide to some things that you can do to help avoid the worst should this happen.

• Firstly, a boiler service every year is a must as this will highlight any problems, or potential problems and help ensure that the boiler is in tip top condition.
• Learn how to relight the boiler manually if the pilot light has gone out. This will save you calling out a heating engineer for a boiler breakdown.
• Many calls for boiler breakdowns are found to be because the gas and electric supply has stopped working for some reason or the boiler itself has been switched off!
• Read the user guide for your boiler and central heating system to ensure you know what to do in an emergency.
• If your boiler is working, check whether your thermostat temperature has been turned down too low and learn how to bleed radiators.
• It’s also important to lag pipes to help prevent a condenser boiler from freezing.
• The drop in water pressure can also lead to combination boilers failing but this pressure can be increased manually.

For anyone with an old boiler, it might be time to invest in a new one as they are more efficient and should save money every year on fuel bills. Heating supplies website Plumb Nation estimates that by investing in a high-efficiency, A-rated condensing boiler, a household could save around £225 a year on their heating bills!

Why a boiler service every year is vital

However, the most effective tactic that a household can undertake is to carry out an annual service of the boiler. Many Home Plan providers, such as Corgi HomePlan, will undertake this on an annual basis as part of their package.

Indeed, even the consumer champion Which? says that getting a good boiler service is vital to ensuring the proper performance of a boiler when it is needed most.

The Which? website even has a very helpful video detailing what a householder should expect from their annual boiler service and a very good page on paying for service contracts and what they involve.

According to Which?, the average cost of a boiler service is £63, though this amount varies greatly depending on where you are living in the UK.

The bottom line from their report is that people will inevitably save money by having a regular boiler service with people responding to the survey confessing that they enjoyed the peace of mind that came with having a Home Plan policy, such as one of those from Corgi HomePlan, which has this service included in the monthly premium.

Boiler services are often included in Home Plan policies

Some plans providers have varying levels of packages for boiler breakdown cover which also includes the heating controls and the central heating system.

It’s this message that prevention is always better than the cure is also underlined by the gas industry itself.

Those responsible for gas safety insist that having a boiler service at least once a year will help improve its condition and improve energy efficiency. Anyone who needs to find a contractor to undertake a boiler service should contact the Gas Safe Register.

The message from the heating and gas industries is that even if you don’t believe that a HomePlan, even the modestly priced packages, are for you then an annual boiler service is the very least a homeowner can do to ensure that the boiler will work through a harsh winter and not let them down.

Save Money and Maintain Your Boiler Hardware

English: Boiler with pipes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you are in any kind of business that requires a great deal of storage or hardware, then you owe it yourself to learn how to maintain your boiler. American Trainco is offering perhaps the best boiler maintenance class in the business.

If you are in need of a thorough tutorial of how to operate your boiler in a cost efficient way while still maximizing the amount of performance that you receive from it, then a training course from American Trainco will definitely get you on the right path. Right now they are offering a two day course on the three main aspects of boilers: operation, maintenance and safety. You can also take only one of the two days if you are so inclined.

You can also request in house training if you feel as though you do not want to leave the comfort of your own home. I personally took training at my work facilities because I wanted to see how the instructor would react to my setup rather than being able to spend his time on hypotheticals that had nothing to do with me. To my satisfaction, all of the techniques that he taught were completely applicable to my business and I was able to apply them immediately to great effect.

I cannot recommend this company more highly when it comes to giving you the knowledge that you need to save money and maintain your hardware and continue to get maximum performance from your boiler as well.