Smart Advice to Avoiding boiler breakdowns

More than 30% of boiler breakdowns that took place over the winter could have been avoided through regular maintenance work, according to a local fuel company.

Tincknell Fuels services over 10,000 boilers a year and in the cold weather last December received more than 1,000 calls in two hours from people who had broken boilers or needed fuel.

The main problems were caused by frozen fuel lines, sludge in the systems and lack of servicing in the coldest winter since 1979.

Robert Tincknell, managing director at Tincknell Fuels, which has depots in Avonmouth, Gillingham, Wells, Exeter, Plymouth, Newquay, Southampton and Bridgwater, said:“Now we are moving into spring and we have had time to analyse the activity from November 2010 to January 2011, where some days saw 30cm of snow falling overnight.

“Importantly, one of the issues our report has shown is that at least 30% of the breakdowns we were called to could have been avoided if people had kept on top of servicing and boiler maintenance throughout the year.

“A high proportion of the boilers that broke down had not been serviced for some years and in these cases the weather was the final straw.”

Tincknell Fuels advises homeowners to keep on top of their boiler maintenance with the following tips:

• Have regular servicing from a reputable company, where oil lines are changed every two years and the boiler is set up using an electronic gas analyser
• Make sure that any water that has got into the tank is monitored
• Clean out sludge from heating systems
• Regularly check the level of oil in your tank to ensure you don’t run out which can then require the lines to be bled through
• Ensure that tanks are filled at the end of the summer to avoid running out at peak times.

Information Sourced from hpmmag.com

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