A boiler that’s suddenly noisier than usual is telling you something. Gurgling usually means air or a frozen condensate pipe, banging or rumbling often points to limescale or sludge, and whistling can mean restricted water flow. Some of this you can check yourself, but anything that keeps going needs a
If your boiler stops on a cold day, run through a few safe checks first: power, thermostat, timer, pressure and any fault code. A surprising number of winter “breakdowns” are a tripped switch, a reset clock or low pressure. If those don’t bring it back, stop there, keep the house
It’s a debate that comes round every autumn in homes across Oxfordshire: leave the heating on low all day, or only switch it on when you need it? For most homes with a gas boiler, using a timer to heat the house when you’re in uses less energy than running
When the first hard frost settles over Oxfordshire, it’s easy to forget about the pipes tucked away in the loft or running along an outside wall. To stop your pipes freezing, insulate any pipework in cold spaces, keep the heating ticking over during cold snaps, deal with outside taps before
You open the boiler cupboard and find a puddle on the floor. A boiler usually leaks because of a worn seal or valve, a corroded pipe joint, a pressure relief valve letting water out, or a failing pump or heat exchanger. Turn the boiler off, isolate the water if you
As the heating goes back on across Oxfordshire, boilers, fires and stoves that sat idle all summer are suddenly working hard again. Carbon monoxide warning signs include headaches, dizziness and nausea that ease when you leave the house, plus sooty marks, a yellow or orange flame, or a pilot light
A boiler loses pressure when water escapes from the heating system or a component can’t hold pressure. The usual culprits are a small leak on a radiator, valve or pipe joint, a pressure relief valve letting water through, an expansion vessel that’s lost its charge, or air released after bleeding
Older homes commonly suffer from outdated pipe materials (including lead or galvanised steel), low water pressure, noisy or banging pipes, slow or blocked drains, seized stopcocks, and slow leaks from ageing joints. Most are manageable once identified, but some, particularly lead pipework, are worth replacing rather than patching. A plumber
You probably need an unvented hot water cylinder if your home has two or more bathrooms used at the same time, your showers are weak on a tank-fed system, or a combi boiler can’t keep up with demand. An unvented cylinder stores hot water at mains pressure, giving strong flow
If you let a property with gas appliances, you must have every gas appliance, flue and the related pipework you provide checked every 12 months by a Gas Safe registered engineer. The engineer issues a gas safety record, sometimes called a CP12 or landlord gas safety certificate. You must give
