Central Heating Operation

This article is about Central Heating systems using hot water as a heat-carrying medium. (Warm-air systems are sometimes found in the UK but their design and installation is not covered here. There is a discussion on updating existing warm-air systems here)

The article is about operating an existing, working central heating system.

There are separate articles about:

• Central Heating Design which may help understanding what sort of system you have.
• Central Heating Repair for help diagnosing and fixing a faulty system

This article is a skeleton: the main points to be covered are listed but some or all still need to be expanded

Setting time and temperature controls

• Programmer and room thermostat
  • check there is a room stat
  • check no other sources of heat or valves turned down in stat area
  • better to keep system running or turn up and down?
• Programmable thermostat
  • fully programmable or set-back
  • optimum start (Honeywell issue)
• combis with pre-heat

Bleeding a CH system

• why? check for corrosion v. air & cause

Topping up a sealed system

• why? check for how pressure being lost