Gas Leak

If you smell gas, think you have a gas leak, or are worried that fumes containing carbon monoxide are escaping from a gas appliance, please call the free Gas Emergency Services emergency line immediately – 0800 111 999

Central Heating Trouble Shooting Advice

There could be a number of reasons why your central heating or hot water system is not working. You may be able to fix several problems yourself, which in turn avoids an engineer visit.

Please try these tips first:

• Check that the gas/oil, electrical and water supplies to the heating appliance are turned on. It’s surprising how easily they can get accidentally switched off.
  
  
• If relevant, check that you have sufficient credit in your gas and electric card meters.
  
  
• Check that the room thermostat is turned up and the clock timer/programmer is switched on.
  
  
• Got a system with a permanent pilot light? Check that it hasn’t gone out – this is a very common problem with older gas appliances
  
  
• Have the clocks gone forward or back? Your clock programmer might just need adjusting to the correct time.
  
  
• Has there been a power cut recently? Your heating clock programmer may have returned to its factory settings when the power came back on. Test the central heating by setting it to come on in 15 minutes time – if that works, simply re-enter your preferred settings.
  
  
• Do you have a customer-operated reset switch (not one that needs you to remove any casing) These are usually found on the front of modern boilers. Please check your appliance user manual to see if it needs resetting.
  
  
• Try turning the electrical supply to the boiler off and on – the switch is usually near the boiler or in the airing cupboard. This might reset your boiler and resolve the problem.
  
  
• Some heating systems with a hot water cylinder may also have an immersion heater fitted as a back up to the heating appliance. In the event of a boiler failure, you can switch on the immersion heater via the spur switch / timer that is usually located within the same airing cupboard space. Please remember to switch back off once the heating appliance is operational again.
  
  
• Has the system pressure dropped? This is sometimes caused by water leaks or the bleeding of radiators and can stop the boiler from working properly:

1. Check the pressure gauge • this should be set at approx. 1.5 bar. A red indicator needle sometimes shows the position set when the boiler was installed.
2. Look under the front of the boiler as we have fitted a blue lever which is spring loaded, just pull it forward and you should see the gauge rise and hear water flowing, just release once the pressure is at 1.5.
3. Look in your appliance user manual to see if you can re-pressurise the boiler yourself – you can also find instructions on the rear of the control panel. If your boiler panel needs tools to remove it, do NOT touch it: make an appointment for a Mears engineer to call instead.

Just remember if any of the above solves the problem you will not have to wait for an engineer (Up to 24 hours), also you will have full heating and hot water immediately.