Out Of Hours Emergencies
Common boiler faults to check first
Low pressure
If the boiler pressure has dropped into the red zone on the gauge at the front, or the digital screen is reporting Low Pressure, you will need to top up the boiler to restore heat and hot water. There are several ways to do this depending on the make, model and installation, but the common methods are shown below.
- Via an external filling loop: First, turn off your boiler. Locate the filling loop (a flexible pipe with two valves), examples shown below:
Open the valves until the pressure starts to increase; you need it to sit between 1 and 1.5 bar. Once the pressure is correct, close off the two valves:
3. Via a Worcester Bosch Keyless system
We would recommend that you always refer to your boiler’s manual before adjusting the pressure.
If it drops again quickly, you likely have a leak and need an engineer.
Blocked condensate
This can commonly occur if 1) the temperature significantly drops in winter and the condensate pipe freezes, or 2) if you have a blockage in the pipe if it runs into your kitchen sink, which is also not draining properly.
1. For a frozen pipe:
2. If the condensate pipe is blocked because your drains are backed up, we recommend attempting to clear the blockage in the drain by plunging or using a drain cleaner. If the block doesn’t clear on the condensate pipe once the drain is running freely, then we will need to attend. Please leave your boiler off in the interim.
Water leaks
Wherever possible, if you can easily source the cause of the leak and isolate the water supply, then this should be done. We can then attend to the issue during working hours to repair it. It is likely that your taps/showers have isolation valves on the supply pipes, which often look like this:
You will see that in the middle of the valve is a groove that shuts it off. If the groove is running in the same direction as the valve, as in the picture above, then you need to take a screwdriver and insert it into the groove running 90 degrees so that the groove is perpendicular to the fitting:
If it is not possible to isolate the leak and the water flow is too much to contain in a bucket, etc., then we can attend. Please note that if we cannot safely stop the leak, we may need to isolate the water supply to your property until we can return during working hours to further investigate/repair the issue.
Alternatively, the valves you may have are stop valves and gate valves; both are closed by turning the handle clockwise until fully closed.
If troubleshooting fails:
Please refer to the information on our emergencies page.
