A boiler service plays a crucial role in properly maintaining the central heating system and boiler, ensuring its effective functioning. It also protects your boiler from sudden breakdowns and saves costly emergency maintenance.
It is suggested to service your boiler at least once a year with the help of a Gas Safe registered engineer. The process won’t take more than an hour; the time, however, primarily depends on the repairs needed and the appliance being serviced.
But you must know about an ideal boiler service checklist to better understand the boiler installed at your home and learn what exactly happens in boiler servicing. If you don’t know about the checklist, this guide will help. This article introduces everything one should know before calling a boiler engineer, so you can better communicate with them and monitor your boiler. Let’s learn about the checklist!
Checklist for Boiler Servicing
The Heating and Hotwater Industry Council (HHIC) is an organisation in the United Kingdom that defines best practices and solutions regarding heat and hot water usage in the country. This department released a consumer boiler maintenance guide in 2018. We’ve used the guide and our years of experience to sculpt the checklist. An ideal boiler service checklist looks like the following:
Pre-Servicing Phase
1. Have Manufacturer’s Manual
Have the manufacturer’s manual in your hand before starting to do anything related to the boiler’s maintenance. The manual contains several instructions from the boiler manufacturer that are necessary to explore when maintaining or changing the settings.
Moreover, it helps the engineer to know the boiler’s make and model to better understand its operational method, functions, different parts, etc. Remember, you must give the engineer a copy of the manual when he arrives and inspects the appliance.
2. Confirm Gas Safe ID
Always call a Gas Safe registered engineer for your boiler service. Verifying their Gas Safe ID is essential when the engineer arrives to ensure you can trust their skills. For this, you can either check the ID card or visit Gas Safe Registration portal, enter the ID number, and verify. Once done with the verification, hand in the manufacturer’s manual.
3. Inform Boiler Issues
It’s essential to inform the engineer about the current boiler’s condition, any existing issues, performance, and everything that may help in the maintenance process. Moreover, if the boiler showed any beep codes or warning signs, inform the engineer about all the issues, symptoms, etc.
Actual Maintenance Phase
Once you have followed all the pre-servicing checklist points, the next phase is to actually start the maintenance process. In this phase, the engineer does the following tasks:
4. Inspecting Boiler’s Working
- The first step is to turn on the boiler, inspect its working phenomenon, locate any issues, and make the next plan.
- The engineer briefly switches on the system/boiler, troubleshoots it using particular testing tools, checks the fuse, and verifies if it matches the system requirements and specifications.
5. Visual Inspecting and Cleaning the Boiler
The next step is to visually inspect the appliance to check if everything looks and operates well. The steps in this phase include:
- Removing the boiler’s case, if required, to access a few internal parts of the boiler as well and complete the inspection process.
- Cleaning different components, using dust sheets for instance, and keeping the working area clean, adjusting and locating any sign of breakdown, defect, or damage.
- Moreover, it may involve making the necessary fixes if it’s not installed correctly.
6. Checking Leakages and Flue Route
- Checking the pressure relief valve to check sign of water discharge and dipping, especially in sealed heating systems.
- Locating the flue route, the pipe that takes exhaust gases outside the house from the boiler, and ensuring that everything is working fine; flue terminals are well; and flue’s fitting is safe.
7. Checking Several Minor Aspects.
The following are some minor aspects of a boiler that an engineer must check to ensure proper servicing and boiler’s durability:
- Checking the burner pressure and gas rate with a gas metre.
- Inspecting the boiler’s flames (which should be blue in colour).
- Doing flue-gas-analysis.
- Checking the heating controls and electrical wiring.
- Checking adequate boiler ventilation.
- Checking if all the safety devices are operating ideally on the boiler.
- Checking the gas leakage.
8. Repairing the Boiler
Once the engineer troubleshoots everything necessary and finds any repairable boiler part, the next step is to repair or replace it.
- If a particular part can be repaired, the engineer will repair it and ensure its future-proofing.
- On the other hand, if a part can’t be repaired and doesn’t cost much, the engineer will replace it.
Post-Servicing Phase
9. Final Checking
When the inspection and repair are completed, the engineer does a few final checks to ensure that the boiler is working effectively. The following are those checkups.
Checking system controls, central heating, and water flow: After servicing the boiler, the engineer checks the following factors to ensure everything is working fine. This ensures that there is no signs of issues in the boiler and that each part is operating effectively.
Hot water storage cylinder: The hot water storage cylinder is an essential boiler part that must be maintained and checked after servicing. It’s appropriately checked and ensured that there are no water leaks or faulty installation.
Checking pressure and thermostat settings: This aspect especially applies to the sealed heating system. The engineer matches the final pressure of the boiler and thermostat settings with what the manufacturer manual.
10. Benchmarking Service Record
The final step in servicing a boiler or central heating system is to complete the benchmark service records, mentioning all the relevant information related to the service in a document and explaining if extra work is required. The following are the aspects to cover in this step:
- The engineer will take the necessary readings of your appliance and add those readings to the benchmark service record.
- It’s also the engineer’s responsibility to give you a detailed job report so that you know what is done in the servicing and what parts are repaired or replaced.
Note: The servicing process ends here. Remember, this process may vary depending on your appliance, its conditions, or the engineer’s convenience. But the step will remain the same for all the devices.
FAQs
How Often Should You Have Your Boiler Services?
The typical boiler maintenance services are required once a year, but you may need random repairs if you see some faults in your boiler or central heating system.
Can I Service a Boiler Myself?
No, servicing a boiler isn’t something that you can do yourself. As you require an expert mechanic to maintain your car, servicing a boiler requires an expert engineer who knows the boilers and their working phenomenon well.
How Long Does It Take to Service a Boiler?
A boiler service can be done in under one hour. But this servicing time may vary depending upon several factors, including the boiler type, repair of certain parts, and other factors.