Are your radiators hot at the bottom and cold at the top? This is a sign that your radiator will need bleeding and gas combi/system boiler topped up. The cold patches are caused by air being trapped inside the central heating radiator, and getting rid of it is relatively straightforward when you have a radiator bleed key. You won’t need a gas safe registered engineer to come out to fix a cold radiator due to air as it’s something that you can easily do yourself at home. It’s really quick and simple to do and to help, we’ve prepared a step-by-step guide.

Bits your need

• A cloth
• Plastic container to catch the water from your radiator
• A radiator key or flat head screwdriver – you’ll need to check your radiators to see which you will need.

1. First, switch you’re heating off (your central heating boiler can stay on if there are 2 people, one watching the pressure on the gas boiler and making sure the pressure does not go to zero, the other person will be bleeding the radiator).
2. Put a cloth or container underneath the radiator bleed screw at the top corner of the radiator to capture water.

If you have a gas combi boiler or sealed system, you will need to check the pressure within your boiler and central heating system. You can normally check this on the display on the boiler or gauge on the heating system its self. Then pressurise your boiler after bleeding the radiators back to the manufacturers recommended level , which in most cases is 1bar pressure when the heating boiler is cold. Some boilers automatically reset them selves when the pressure drops too low and cuts out the boiler for safety. other boilers will need to be reset manually. if you are not sure how to do this you can follow our guide to reset your boiler. 

The other option is to contact us by calling 02089878031 or email info@HomePolicy.co.uk and arrange for HomePolicy to send around one of its engineers to get your heating system back up and running.