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When you touch your central heating radiators and they feel hot at the bottom but cool on top, it is time to bleed your radiators. Bleeding your radiators releases air that has got trapped in the central heating system over a period of time, and makes your central heating system work more efficiently and your house warmer.
Check if you have a combination boiler or gravity fed central heating system – if a combination boiler, you will need to know how to re-pressurise the system after you have bled the radiators. The manufacturers guide should explain this to you or a heating engineer in London will be able to do it for you at a reasonable cost.
The bleed valve is situated at the top of your radiator, and you should insert the bleed key and give it a small turn anti-clockwise until you start to hear a hiss as the trapped air starts to escape. It is useful to have an old cloth at hand in case some drops of water escape with the air. When the water in the radiator reaches the level of the valve, give the key a clockwise turn to close the valve – although not to tight as you may damage the thread.
Check all the radiators in your system as if one needs bleeding, quite frequently they all do – you just have not noticed it yet. If you have any problems accessing the bleed valve or do not know how to re-pressurise your central heating system, please consult a heating engineer in London via our Tradesmen´s Directory.
Please also read our blog post – “A Summer Flush will Save you Money” – as we approach October 1st – traditionally the day on which many people in the UK switch on their central heating systems for the winter