Getting your boiler serviced now, while the weather’s warm, will make sure it’s in tip-top shape for those cold winter nights.
Our research has found that, not only will getting your boiler looked at every year reduce the odds of it breaking, but it will be significantly cheaper than paying for an expensive repair.
Read on to learn how much you should be paying for a service, and how much you could save by doing so.
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Check your boiler in the summer
This may seem like strange advice, but it’s all in preparation for the winter months, when the temperature plummets and your boiler gets called into action.
If there’s a problem with your boiler, it’s better to know now, rather thn home starts to get cold, and you really want it to work.
Getting a Gas Safe engineer to service your boiler in August will significantly reduce the odds of your boiler packing up and leaving your home freezing cold, with you wrapped up in a duvet waiting for an engineer to come out and fix it.
Signs your boiler needs a service
At any time of year, you should get an engineer out to take a look if you notice any of the following:
- Radiators take ages to heat up – this could mean sludge has built up in your heating system. It may mean your radiators don’t heat up efficiently and you’ll end up having to have the heating on for longer periods of time, making your winter energy bills more costly
- Boiler gives off a bad smell – trust your nose: a healthy boiler will never emit an odour. Get a professional engineer into investigate
- Boiler is making strange sounds – it will make a noise when firing up, but after this it should be a pretty constant, low hum. If you here lots of banging or clanking sounds after firing up, switch the boiler off and call an engineer.
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Having a good carbon monoxide alarm is also crucial – but we’ve found a frightening number that don’t work as they should. Make sure you have a Best Buy carbon monoxide detector.
Check your thermostat setting
‘I recently turned my boiler on to check it was working properly. After 15 minutes I put my hand on the radiators. Cold.
I was surprised because the hot water was working fine. After reading the instruction manual and searching for a local engineer I suddenly thought: the thermostat!
Sure enough, I’d turned the thermostat all the way down to 10°C to stop the heating coming on during the summer. I turned it back up and the boiler fired up. Five minutes later, the radiators were nice and warm.
This may be obvious, but it’s an easy mistake to make. If at first the heating doesn’t turn on, try checking your thermostat’ – Sam Morris, Which? Researcher/Writer
Need a Gas Safe engineer to get your boiler serviced? Use Which? Trusted Traders to find a boiler engineer vetted by Which? that’s local to you.
How often should your boiler be serviced?
Failing to get your boiler serviced annually will often invalidate any warranty.
Plus, all the evidence shows getting a service once a year is the best way to reduce the odds of needing a costly repair.
In our 2021 boiler reliability survey, we asked 8,000 boiler owners how often they get their boiler serviced, and whether it had ever developed a fault.
Nearly 7 out of 10 boiler owners that get a yearly service have never had their boiler breakdown . This drops to 5 out of 10 owners that service their boiler every one to two years. And just 4 in 10 who service their boiler every three to five years have been lucky enough to not need a repair.
A service is not a guarantee that your boiler will never break, of course. But the odds are much more in your favour if you get it serviced every year.
What does a boiler service include?
A boiler service should be thorough. After all, the purpose of a service is to prevent your boiler breaking and costing you more in the long run.
Your boiler service should include:
- Checks on the flue (external and internal)
- Checks on the safety devices in your boiler
- Checks on all the main components (burner, heat exchanger, spark/sensor probe)
- And the boiler should be fired up to identify any faults
You should be given a service report at the end, showing everything the engineer has done
Find out how to get the best boiler service
The cost of a service vs the cost of one-off boiler repairs
Getting a service ensures your boiler will be in top working order. Unless you’re paying for boiler cover that includes an annual service, you’ll need to pay for it. But it’ll still be cheaper to pay for an annual service than to pick up the cost of fixing a broken boiler.
We asked 153 Which? Trusted Traders how much they charge for a one off service, and the average price was £86.
Compare this to the cost of replacing the boiler parts that most often fail and – depending on the part – you’d typically save anywhere from £30 up to £219 by opting for the service.
The table below shows the four boiler parts that are most likely to develop a fault according to our Trusted Trader engineers, plus the average cost of a repair.
The cost will vary depending on factors such as your specific boiler and where you live, but our analysis should give you a good sense of typical costs.
| Boiler Part | Average repair cost (part and labour) | |
 |
Pressure relief valve | £123 |
 |
Automatic air vent | £115 |
 |
Diverter / zone valve | £218 |
 |
Printed circuit board | £305 |
Find out the costs for all ten of the most common boiler faults in our guide to common boiler problems.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/08/why-you-should-get-your-boiler-serviced-this-august/