Heating & Hot Water Maintenance for Tenants - Common Issues Explained
Heating and hot water maintenance for tenants usually comes down to a handful of repeat problems: lost boiler pressure, trapped air in the radiators, or a thermostat that’s set lower than it feels. Each one has an obvious symptom once you know what to look for. A boiler that keeps cutting out or won’t fire up at all is often a pressure issue. A radiator that’s cold at the top but warm at the bottom almost always means air needs bleeding out. And a flat that never quite reaches temperature can sometimes be fixed by checking the thermostat settings before assuming the system is faulty. Working through the videos on this page in order — pressure first, then radiators — solves most heating complaints without needing a call-out at all.
Heating & Hot Water Maintenance for Tenants: Preventing Problems Before They Start
A few regular habits keep your heating running smoothly between the jobs above:
- Check the boiler pressure gauge once a month, especially in winter when pressure drops faster.
- Bleed radiators at the start of the heating season, even if they seem to be working fine.
- Keep the heating on low overnight during cold snaps to stop pipes freezing.
- Don’t cover radiators with clothing or furniture, which stops heat circulating properly.
- Listen for banging or gurgling pipes, which usually means air or a pressure issue building up.
Here are some short "how-to" videos to help you sort common heating & hot water issues in minutes - before you need to raise a maintenance request.
Boiler not working? - Quick Fixes to try at home!
How to repressurise a combi boiler
One of the biggest heating and hot water maintenance problems tenants experience is the loss of boiler pressure.
Each boiler manufacturer may have a different way to repressurise the boiler, but the most common way it with a filling loop.
Here is a short video showing how to repressurise your boiler if it has a filling loop.
Heating & Hot Water Maintenance for Tenants: Reading Your Pressure Gauge
Most boiler gauges have a coloured zone, usually marked in green, between 1 and 1.5 bar. If the needle sits below that, in the red, your boiler needs repressurising using the steps in the video above. If it sits above the green zone, the system has too much pressure, which is less common but worth reporting if bleeding a radiator doesn’t bring it back down. Check the gauge cold, before the heating has been running, for the most accurate reading.
Specific makes: How to repressurise a Worcester Boiler
Specific makes: How to repressurise a Worcester Greenstar Boiler
Boiler Malfunction – Condensate Pipe Frozen
How to bleed a radiator
If you find that your radiator is not heating up, check the boiler pressure.
If the bottom half of the radiator is heating up but not the top, you may need to bleed the radiator as there could be air in the heating system. Here’s how to do it!
Heating & Hot Water maintenance for Tenants - What to Do in an Emergency
If you smell gas, leave the property immediately, don’t turn any switches on or off, and call the National Gas Emergency line on 0800 111 999 from outside. For a burst pipe near the boiler or heating system, turn off the stopcock and switch the boiler off at the wall. If you have no heating or hot water and it’s putting anyone vulnerable at risk, contact us straight away rather than waiting for a routine repair slot.
How to report a heating and hot water fault
You can report any maintenance issue through our online maintenance portal.
The more detail you give, the faster we can arrange the right tradesperson. Please include:
- What happened and when it started
- Which room or appliance is affected
- What you have already tried
- Photos or a short video, where it is safe to take one
