Problems with boilers are extremely common. The good news is they can often be solved easily. Jacqueline Gallazzi-Ritchie, director at All England Gas, offers her top boiler tips for students and landlords - advice which may come in handy for tenants and homeowners too.
According to a survey from Save the Student 32% of students claimed a lack of hot water and heating was a big problem in their accommodation.
The same survey found that one in 10 students had to wait more than than a month to get these issues fixed. Yet, some of these problems, like bleeding radiators, could actually be solved quickly by the students themselves.
The difficulty comes in that for most of your student tenants this will be their first time away from home, and they simply won’t be clued up on household appliances. This is where you can help, by advising them on what to do if they encounter an issue with their boiler.
Here, I’ll be outlining some of the most common boiler problems and how you can instruct your tenants to deal with them.
No heating or hot water
I’ve mentioned that a lack of heating and hot water is one of the most common problems that students face with their accommodation, but there could be a simple fix for this.
If your tenants inform you about a lack of hot water or heating, ask them to check if the settings on their boiler haven’t been changed by accident.
If they’re not sure, you may need to tell them what their settings should be. If there’s been a power cut recently, the timed settings could have been reset, which means students will need to reprogram it back to their original times following the manufacturer’s instructions.
Radiators are cold
If your tenants are finding that their radiators aren’t getting hot, it could be because air pockets have entered the system and the radiators will need bleeding to let this air out.
This can easily be done by the students themselves, so they should be given the radiator key which will allow them to do this.
You can advise them to bleed their radiators by inserting the key into a valve at the top and side of the system and turning it until they hear a hissing sound — this is the air escaping.
When the hissing ceases and water starts to leak out, this means that the air has gone, and they should turn the valve back to its starting position.
After doing this, the pressure in the boiler may have dropped, and it will need topping back up. Again, tenants can do this themselves by locating the filling loop.
This should be a braided pipe attached to the boiler with a valve at either end. Opening both of these valves will allow cold water to enter the system, topping the pressure up. This process should be repeated after bleeding each radiator until the pressure gauge on the boiler is sitting at the 1.5 bar mark.
Boiler is leaking
When the boiler is leaking, the issue entirely depends on the location of the leak. One of the most common causes of a leaking boiler is high pressure, so tenants should first check that the pressure gauge is in green.
If it isn’t, the pressure is too high and can be lowered using the pressure relief valve. If this doesn’t work, tenants should check that the valves on either end of the filling loop haven’t been left open by mistake.
If the boiler pressure is still too high, it could be an issue with one of the internal components, and you should call a Gas Safe engineer to take a look.
Frozen condensate pipe
The condensate pipe is a channel which allows water to be drained from the boiler into the usual household wastewater system.
It should be fairly easy to locate the condensate pipe, just look for a plastic tube which runs from the boiler into a drain outside the property.
But, since it usually runs outside, this pipe can sometimes freeze in the winter and the boiler will then display the appropriate error code or make a ‘slurping’ sound.
A frozen condensate pipe can be thawed by tenants using hot (not boiling) water before resetting the system.
To completely prevent it from freezing, a fully qualified Gas Safe engineer can advise you on the best way to insulate your condensate pipe.
If everything seems to be in order, but the problem persists, you should call a Gas Safe registered engineer immediately to take a look at the boiler and resolve the issue. Never remove the cover of the boiler yourself or advise tenants to do so, as this can be unsafe and should only be done by an engineer.
Jacqueline Gallazzi-Ritchie is director at All England Gas. For more information click here.
