How to bleed a gas boiler?
What are gas boilers?
Gas boilers are those central heating systems which operate by using either on-grid gas or LPG and act like mini fires in order to heat water continuously. The heated water is then pumped around the property through pipes or, at times, pumped directly to the taps and showers or stored in a hot water tank for future water usage. This system operates by burning the grid gas or LPG in the combustion chamber in order to warm the water around 70°C through the heat exchanger.
Before learning about how to bleed a gas boiler you should have a clear understanding of the types of gas boilers.
Types of gas boilers
Combi boilers- Combi boilers are probably the most cost-effective residential boilers that are proven to be best for controlling both central heating and hot water. Combi boilers operate to serve you with the instant supply of hot water in taps and tanks, thus making themselves count on the list of boilers that cater heat-on-demand in order to cut down the use of any storage tank or cylinder, which means that they are made to be suitable for homes with comparatively lesser space.
Conventional Boilers- Conventional boilers are also known as regular, open vent or heat only boilers that are mainly built with a cylinder or a storage tank. Conventional boiler can still be a great boiler choice for modern homes to serve a high demand for hot water.
System boilers- System boilers are great and highly efficient systems that operate by pumping hot water into the radiators and a sealed hot cylinder.
Before getting on to the point of how to bleed a gas boiler let us understand the reason for bleeding your system.
Why bleeding?
The infiltration in your heating system can reduce the efficiency of your unit, turn your radiators cold and produce abnormal sounds like whistling or humming, demanding an urge to bleed your central heating system. In case of the gas boilers, the hot water circulates between the radiator and the boiler through pipes. Over the time, the air seeps into the pipes, creating air bubbles which then interfere with the distribution of water in the pipe and the vessel, thus reducing the efficiency level of your system and generating huge energy waste which certainly increases your energy bills.
Bleeding the system would, therefore, allow a good circulation of hot water in the pipe lines, and would eventually result into uniform heat diffusion along with a cut down on your energy bills.
Now that you are clear on why bleeding is important for your system, you might be wondering on how to bleed a gas boiler?
How to bleed a Gas boiler?
The accumulated air in your boiler needs to be removed and this is how simply it can be done in 6 steps-
- Initially you need to figure out and sure yourself on the point that the sound coming from the boiler is an outcome of the accumulated air in the system.
- Now that you are sure on the reason, you need to put a flat screwdriver in the boiler trap part of the radiator.
- Also, put a glass underneath and turn it to the tap in the counterclockwise motion in order to see how the liquid falls in the container. You need to process this slowly because unscrewing while doing it fast or hard can led the water to burst out with a lot of pressure.
- If you are dealing with an individual heating system, then it would be better to turn the boiler off one hour before purging, in order to allow the air to rise to the top of the radiator.
- While purging, that means while the water is coming out you need to check the boilers barometer for which the pressure is recommended to be between 1 and 1.5 bars.
- Most of the boilers come with an automatic purge system that can, at times cause the boiler to drip or even break down causing a flood. That is probably why you need to stay alert during the process.
Warning- It is highly recommended to consider a professional help if you have no experience about it, as it can be dangerous dealing with water flowing with a lot of pressure.