Here at DeWAR Plumbers we are always reminding people to get their gas boiler or oil boilers serviced on an annual basis. But what exactly is a boiler service? What do you get for your money?
In its simplest terms, a boiler service is a series of tests and examinations that are carried out in order to make sure that your oil or gas boiler is in proper working order. This ensures that you are not wasting any fuel needlessly due to inefficient boiling processes, which helps you keep the cost of your central heating bills down.
Some of the main things which your engineer will inspect when carrying out a gas or oil boiler service are related to your boiler’s location, clearance, and quality of ventilation. The engineer carrying out the boiler service will also give the inside of the boiler a professional inspection and clean in order to stop dust and dirt from accumulating and causing trouble. Once the boiler is reassembled, the functionality of the boiler can be tested, ensuring that everything is working at its maximum levels of efficiency.
A gas/oil boiler service nips minor problems in the bud and prevents them from becoming much more difficult (not to mention more costly in terms of finance) to fix complications including boiler breakdown.
It is worth noting that it is illegal for anyone to carry out a gas boiler service in Ireland unless they are a Registered Gas Installer who is qualified by means of the RGII (Registered Gas Installers of Ireland). In Northern Ireland, they must be registered with Gas Safe. All of DeWAR Plumbers’ gas contractors are fully registered gas installers.
Similarly, all DeWAR Plumbers‘ oil contractors are fully registered members of OFTEC (the Oil Firing Technical Association). While this is not a legal necessity that oil contractors in Ireland are registered with OFTEC, DeWAR Plumbers’ oil contractors are registered with them in order to offer our customers an extra bit of peace of mind when we are on the job.
Yearly Boiler Service Checklist
When having a boiler service carried out your gas or oil contractor will do the following:
Preliminary Visual Inspection:
Ensure that your gas/oil boiler is situated in a suitable location.
Ensure that your gas/oil boiler is well ventilated.
Inspect the boiler and its associated parts for signs of damage.
Other Things that Will be Done in the Service:
Check the location and condition of the boiler’s flue
Look for spillages and other forms of moisture around the flue.
In the case of a high efficiency condensing boiler, the condensate drainage system will be checked.
Ensure that the boiler is not in close proximity of any flammable materials.
Inspect and clean the boiler’s main burning compartment.
Test the main burner to ensure that it is operating properly and adjust it (according to the manufacturers specifications) if need be.
Inspect and clean the pilot burner along with any associated cabling.
Check the heat exchanger and clean where necessary.
Run the boiler in order to gauge the effectiveness of the flue.
Ensure that the 3-amp fuse is installed correctly.
Make sure that the boiler is electrically isolated.
Check all associated electrical wiring for signs of damage.
Ensure that said wiring is connected to the boiler unit correctly.
Check the boiler’s thermostat and make sure that it is working properly.
Check the boiler system’s pressure levels and ensure that they are balanced in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications.
Check the boiler’s expansion vessel and charge it where required.
Ensure that the flue guard is fitted correctly.
Lastly, a combustion efficiency test should be done.
Once all of the aforementioned duties have been carried out a Completion Certificate or Declaration of Conformance should be issued by the engineer.
Please note that while the aforementioned checks are what is normally required of a boiler service, no two gas/oil boilers are exactly the same. Some boiler units may require slightly methods and specifics in relation to the service. Whatever the make or model of the boiler being serviced, it is strongly recommended that the manufacturer’s specifications and recommendations be followed closely when servicing any kind of boiler.
DeWAR Plumbers offer boiler services which start at €69 when you . If you would like to organise one please call our phone number 01 514 3300 or email us with a time and date that suits you.
Preventing Plumbing Problems
While it is virtually impossible to prevent all plumbing problems that can possibly come about, a great many of them can be avoided by taking adequate care and precautions. By adhering to the following advice, you can make life much easier for yourself by negating the need for having unnecessary plumbing services while saving yourself quite a bit of money and inconvenience.
Preventing Plumbing Problems
Usually when confronted with a dripping or leaky tap, a person’s initial response is to attempt to close it as tightly as physically possible. Unfortunately, this rarely works and, in many cases, causes a lot more harm than good. Applying too much force when closing a tap’s valve can force it into a position that it was not designed for, which damages the tap itself, making the problem worse. If your taps are indeed dripping or leaking, it is recommended that you seek out assistance from a professional plumber instead of going down the ‘do it yourself’ route or simply ignoring the problem. When left unchecked, small leaks and drips can become progressively worse until you have a rather serious complication on your hands. It is best practice to fix problems when they are small and have inexpensive solutions instead of waiting until a bigger and more expensive problem emerges.
Don’t Use Shower Head Racks
Much like taps, shower heads do not respond well to having excess pressure applied to them. That is why the use of shower head racks is not recommended. Their weight puts additional strain on the shower head and can, over time, cause it to begin to separate from the wall. This can result in leaks occurring. These leaks will need to be fixed, which is a lot more expensive (not to mention time-consuming) than simply fastening a form of storage rack to your shower wall.
How to Stop Your Shower’s Drains From Clogging
The purpose of a shower is to remove and dispose of dirt. As such, it is to be expected that this dirt can, over time, result in blockages in your shower’s drain. The most likely thing to block up your shower’s drain is, however, hair. People tend to shed hair while showering and this can then accumulate into clumps which will stop water from passing through the drain. It is fairly easy to tell when your drain is starting to clog as water will not drain away as quickly as it used to and will start to fill up your shower tray as you wash.
One simple method of preventing your shower’s drain from becoming blocked is to install a filter on top of your shower’s draining hole. You can purchase such a filter in just about any hardware store and they are fairly cheap to buy. Despite being fairly simple in design and execution, a shower drain filter is a very efficient installation. It will prevent hair and all but the finest dirt from making its way into your drainage system while allowing water to pass through unimpeded, preventing your shower tray from filling up with water.
Another worthwhile consideration to take on board in relation to all forms of drainage is that of drain cleaning products. While they most certainly can be useful when dealing with small blockages, you should bear in mind how they work. The corrosive elements found in drain cleaning unblocking eat away at the blockage until such time that it breaks apart and gets swept away. This is why you should be careful and only use such drain unblocking products and only use them sparingly. If you use them too often or in too large a quantity they may begin to around your actual piping, which is very bad news indeed. When you consider the inherent risks of piping damage associated with drain unblocking chemicals and take into account the fact that they are expensive to buy as well as environmental factors (they are extremely bad for the environment), they do not come across as being a particularly sound investment.
Don’t Use Your Toilet For Rubbish
A blocked up toilet is a serious pain that can cause untold amounts of disruption in any home. You should really be doing everything in your power to ensure that such blockages do not occur. The interesting thing about blocked toilets is that, in the vast majority of cases, the problem could have easily been avoided had people not attempted to flush non-flushable items down their toilet.
Far and away the most commonly encountered source of toilet blockages is kitchen roll and industrial strength blue roll being flushed. While these roll based sheets are very similar in terms of appearance to toilet roll and tissue paper (both of which are perfectly flushable), they are designed to be much stronger and a lot more difficult to break down. Where tissues and toilet paper dissolve in water for ease of flushing, blue roll and kitchen roll do not. Instead, they tend to ‘clump’ and accumulate, getting stuck in piping when flushed.
While blue roll and kitchen paper is the most common source of blocked toilets, they are far from the only thing people carelessly try to flush away. DeWAR Plumbers have encountered some very strange items in toilet piping down through the years.
Sinks Are Not For Waste Disposal
Much like the aforementioned toilet, sinks are also commonly mistaken for bins. The most common reason behind blocked sink piping is leftover foodstuffs from cooking and food preparation. While the sink based ‘garbage disposal system’ is commonplace in America, sinks in Ireland are not designed to dispose of solids and can become blocked quite easily, resulting in plumbing works needing to be done. Liquids should only ever be poured down the drain of a sink. Solid items should be appropriately disposed of by putting them in a bin or, if appropriate, used in a compost pile.
If you have taken heed of all the advice in this article, but are still experiencing problems with your plumbing then it may be time to call in a professional plumber to sort the issue out.
Call DeWAR Plumbers on our phone number 01 514 3344 or email us in order to have a plumber sent out to you at a time and date that suits you.
Maintenance Tips for Bathrooms
As one of the most important rooms in a house, bathrooms need there fair share of maintenance work carried out as a matter of routine in order for it to run efficiently. Being diligent in your bathrooms maintenance duties can save you a great deal of inconvenience and money in the long term. Adhering to the following advice should allow you to manage your bathroom properly and negate the need for expensive repairs and services further on down the line.
Maintaining Your Toilet
Did you know that the humble toilet uses up more water than any other home appliance? This is why maintaining your toilet is an essential part of your bathroom maintenance routine. But where to begin?
There are situations where you can identify a toilet maintenance issue without needing to see it, let alone get your hands dirty. It is possible to figure out that your toilet has sprung an internal leak simply by listening to it. When a toilet consistently generates sounds of water dripping or running even when it hasn’t been flushed for some time, an internal leak is almost invariably the cause of said sounds. If you are unsure that this is the case, there are other means of checking if your toilet is leaking internally. By simply dropping some food dye into the toilet’s cistern and waiting to see if the dye finds its way into the toilet bowl you have an easy method of checking. If the dye does indeed appear in the toilet bowl (generally within half an hour of the initial drops being put in the cistern) then you have all the evidence you need to confirm that the toilet has indeed sprung an internal leak.
Such a leak wastes both water and money so should be rectified as soon as possible. Consult a professional plumber in order to find out what the best course of action is in order to fix the leak. You wouldn’t settle for your toilet leaking outward, so the same should go for inward.
It should go without saying that your toilet needs to be cleaned on a regular basis for hygiene purposes. It is worth taking the extra time and effort to add a bit of maintenance work to your toilet cleaning duties as it can make life a lot easier for you in the long run.
You should regularly check the section at the bottom of the toilet where the bowl meets the floor. Keep an eye out for any water that may be seeping outward. Even when no water is present you should give the bowl a light (ie: not forceful) shove to make sure that it is sturdy. If under light pressure, the lower part of the toilet moves even slightly then there is a problem, most likely in relation to the seat of the toilet. A professional plumber will be able to tell whether you need to have extra caulking installed or if a new toilet ring needs to be installed.
A toilet that does not flush properly is a sure sign that it has become clogged somehow. Before calling in a professional plumber you can attempt to unblock it yourself by using an unfolded coat hanger or over the counter drain unblocking chemicals (be sure to use these sparingly as overuse can cause erosion in ceramics which is a whole new problem). If neither of these methods manages to produce any positive results then there must be a rather serious blockage. If that turns out to be the case then you should call in a professional plumber for assistance.
Maintaining Your Shower
Of all the household appliances, showers are considered among the most difficult to repair when they break down. In a great many cases, it is quicker, easier and cheaper to buy a new shower unit than it is to go through the trouble of repairing one. To that end, it is of the utmost importance that you keep your shower in full working order for as long as possible in order to avoid the expense of replacement or repairs. One problem which tends to pop up time and time again in relation to showers, especially in hard water areas like Louth and Galway, is that of limescale build up in the shower head. This means less water can exit the shower at any given time and can, in turn, lead to the shower unit breaking down due to the inconsistent water levels found within.
One savvy and easy to do means of limiting the amount of built up limescale found accumulating in a shower head is to completely remove the shower head completely and then submerge it in a shallow dish full of vinegar over the course of a few hours. White vinegar (as opposed to brown or red) is recommended as it is less likely to leave a stain on the shower head.Prolonged exposure to the vinegar will soften up the limescale, meaning that you will then be able to remove it without scrubbing harshly on the shower head which in itself can cause damage. When you have successfully removed the limescale you can then reattach the shower head. Once it is attached securely you should then turn on the shower for a short length of time so that it can wash away the vinegar.
Maintaining Taps
In the vast majority of situations, it is fairly easy to tell when your taps are and are not working correctly as a leaking tap is an easy enough problem to spot. However, not all taps are used often enough to be taken note of. If you do have any taps which are not used often, you should make it your business to check on them regularly as part of your home maintenance routine. In addition to checking to see if your taps are leaking, you should attempt to gauge your home’s water pressure.
The easiest way to figure out the level of water pressure coming through your taps involves leaving them on for a minute or so. Once a sufficient amount of water is coming out of the tap at a consistent rate you can be fairly confident that the tap is running with a satisfactory level of water pressure. On the other hand, if water flow from the tap is inconsistent and prone to trickling out even when you have completely opened it, you can be fairly certain that your tap is not receiving an acceptable level of water pressure. Two commonly cited reasons for taps exhibiting low water pressure are blockages in your pipes and frozen piping.
It is considered best practice to check your taps very regularly, especially in rooms where they are not used very often. When you do encounter leaking taps or taps with low water pressure it is recommended that you contact a professional plumber to take a look and fix the problem.
Maintaining Pipes
As with most plumbing issues, prevention is almost always better than cure in relation to piping. By ensuring that such problems do not arise in the first place, you can save yourself a lot of hassle and money in the long run (ie: not having to spend money on plumbing works). Simply ensuring that all of your taps are used regularly will do most of the work in relation to keeping grime and detritus building up in pipes and creating bothersome blockages. Every tap in your home should get at least a few minutes of use every week to keep its piping from clogging up. Fortunately, most taps in a household will get this much use from day to day usage, in any case, so no specific attention need be directed at them. However, in the case of rarely used taps, they should have an eye kept on them (as mentioned above) in order to ensure that their pipes do not experience clogging issues.
If despite you carrying out routine good maintenance practices in relation to your pipes and taps, you are still experiencing low levels of water pressure, then it is highly likely that more drastic action is required. If this is the case, then you may need to avail of a Power Flush for your heating system from a professional plumber. A Power Flush service involves running a mixture of water and specific chemicals through piping. This will unblock even very severe blockages. Power Flush Services can also be carried out on piping related to your home’s central heating system and radiators in order to improve a home’s energy efficiency rating while saving money on heating bills.
In order to prevent freezing in your home’s piping, you must ensure that any and all pipes which run outside the building or through colder sections of the home (such as basements and garages) are thoroughly insulated. If left without insulation, pipes can become clogged up with ice. This presents a whole host of problems including reduced water pressure, total loss of running water from your taps and, worst of all, burst pipes.
If, despite your best bathroom maintenance efforts, you are still experiencing problems it might be time to admit defeat and call in a professional plumber for assistance. DeWAR Plumbers can be contacted via email or on our phone number 01 514 3300
Power Flushing your Heating System FAQ
Over time, all manner of dirt, grime and other kinds of unwanted blockages can accumulate within the piping of your home’s heating system. A Power Flushing Service is a very efficient way of cleaning such undesirable elements out your central heating system. Using a specially designed Power Flush device, an experienced DeWAR Plumber pumps a combination of water and cleansing chemicals which pass through your heating system’s pipe work, loosening and removing the aforementioned unwanted debris, leaving your system free to operate at its full capacity.
What Signs Show that a Heating System Needs a Power Flushing Service?
Does it take longer for your home to warm up when you turn on the radiators than it has in the past?
Do you hear peculiar sounds coming from your central heating system’s piping (creaking, popping, clicking etc.)?
Can loud banging noises be heard from the boiler that is connected to your central heating system?
Is said boiler prone to turning itself off seemingly at random?
Are sections of any of your radiators consistently cold despite the heating being turned up to its full output?
Have you ever noticed dirty water (grey/brown) leaking from any of your radiators or the piping connected to them?
Do your taps produce hot water inconsistently?
If you have noticed any of these signs then there is good reason to suspect that your home’s central heating system could make use a Power Flush Service. Arranging to have a professional plumber come out and perform a Power Flush Service is advisable as it will help prevent larger problems from arising in the future.
How Long does a Power Flush Service take?
The exact length of time needed to perform a Power Flush Service depends on certain factors such as the number of radiators that you have in your property as well as how badly blocked your central heating system’s piping actually is. A typical Power Flush Service in your standard home with little or no complications generally only takes between four and five hours from start to finish. However, when allocating a time frame for your Power Flush Service you should ideally put aside a whole day. This covers you in case anything unforeseen happens and the job turns out to be more complicated than initially anticipated.
Is a Power Flush Service a Messy Operation?
At DeWAR Plumbers we understand that keeping your home tidy while carrying out our services is of the utmost importance. To that end, we make it our business to carry out our Power Flush Services as efficiently and with as little collateral mess as possible. We take all the necessary precautions to ensure that all radiators and piping are drained out thoroughly, with all waste matter collected appropriately so no mess is created via expelled water and dirt.
What are the Main Advantages of a Power Flush Service?
There are a great many good reasons to have your central heating system power flushed. These are the main ones:
Your radiators will be able to warm up your house faster.
Your radiators will heat up more evenly and consistently (ie: There will be no cold spots on the radiators and, subsequently, in your home).
Your home’s central heating system will operate in a much more energy efficient manner, saving fuel, energy and money. This is good for both the environment and your finances.
Taps, shower heads and other home appliances will provide a much better and more consistent quality of hat water.
The longevity of your home’s heating system will be extended along with a greatly reduced risk of radiator breakdown which would result in expensive and lengthy repair works.
How Often Should a Home Central Heating System be Power Flushed?
While there is no absolute time frame on when a Power Flushing Service should be carried out as every central heating system is different, the general consensus is that a home heating system should be Power Flushed every four to five years to ensure that its radiators run at their optimum levels of efficiency. In some cases, a Power Flushing Service may be required more often – see the signs listed earlier in this article for a better indication.
Is a Power Flush Service Needed for New Radiators and Boilers?
Generally speaking, yes. Usually when having new radiators and / or boilers installed the appliances themselves tend to be in impeccable working order. However, the same cannot always be said for the pipes which are being attached to them. If said pipes are old or have been running a lot prior to the installation of the new appliances, they could well have accumulated all manner of limescale, grime and other undesirable elements. If that is the case, then connecting them to your brand new appliances can only lead to them suffering from blockages long before their time.
It is strongly recommended that a Power Flush service be carried out on your home’s central heating system’ pipes before you install any new radiators or boilers. A Power Flushing Service is much simpler when radiators and boilers are not involved, so it will save you time and hassle by doing carrying one out before you install said appliances. It also allows the new appliances to work at their highest levels of efficiency straight away and for a very long time to come.
If you feel that your home’s central heating system would benefit from having a power flush service carried out you should give DeWAR Plumbers a call and organise one. Our number, 01 514 3300, is free to call and we can be contacted via email as well.
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