How to bleed a radiator

Bleeding your radiator and defrosting a frozen condensate pipe are two jobs that you can tackle yourself at home. This video provides step by step guidance on how to carry out both tasks…

Video Transcript

How to Bleed a Radiator

If you find one or more of your radiators is hot at the bottom, cold at the top, or even cold all over — this means you will need to bleed your radiator.

For this you need a bleeding key. You can buy these from you local hardware store.

At one end of your radiator there is a slot that the key fits into.

Make sure you have a cloth underneath before turning the key.

When you turn the key, you will hear a hissing noise — this means that the built up air in the radiator is releasing.

As soon as water starts to come out and the hissing stops — close it and wipe up any excess water.

Do all of your radiators starting from the ground floor up.

Check your boiler after bleeding all the radiators in case your pressure has dropped as the pressure may need topping up. You can refer to our re-pressurising video. If its a combi or pressurised system — you will need to re charge the system using the filling or link key ensuring the correct pressure is added

If the pressure drops again, the radiators may need topping up and you may need to call a Help-Link engineer. Visit help link dot co dot uk for more details

Defrost a frozen condensate pipe

You can identify if you have a problem with your boiler’s condensate pipe by checking if the blue light on the front of the boiler is flashing.

The blue light is located in the small window gap on the front of the boiler flap.

Ensure the power to the system is switched off.

Located in the top right hand corner underneath the flap is a digital window, this may be flashing up the letters EA.

This either means that there is no gas getting into the system or condensation isn’t getting out. If its mid winter this usually means a frozen pipe.

Locate the pipe outside.

To cure the frozen pipe, simply get a kettle of hot water (not boiling) and put this evenly along the pipes — paying special attention to the joints.

Alternatively you can tuck a hot water bottle around the external pipes and leave it for half an hour.

If this doesn’t do the trick, we recommend you call one of our experts to help you fix the problem.