Central Heating

CENTRAL HEATING

If the heating pipes are banging, check the thermostat on your boiler as it may be malfunctioning and the system is overheating. If that is not the cause, pipes can be lagged where they are banging against joints under floors. Plastic brackets can be used to secure rattling copper pipes, which will stop the noise even if they still move a little when warming up.

A simple and safe way to check that your thermostat is working is to hold a table lamp underneath it and switch the lamp on. After a few minutes the heat from the lamp should cause the thermostat to turn the heating down or off. The heating should come back on shortly after the lamp is turned off or removed.

If you have to take part of the system apart, especially anything electrical, it is worth labelling anything that you undo so that you know where to put it back after the repair.

Every six months or so, it is worth turning all the radiator valves and the valves on the central heating, such as the pump, both up and down to their extreme points to prevent them sticking.

To protect against frost damage, either fit a special thermostat, sometimes known as a frost thermostat, to the central heating system, which will turn on as the temperature reduces, or add an antifreeze that is non-corrosive to the feed cistern.