To think someone should have told me?

[SquidgyBanana]

How to bleed a sodding radiator.... I’m 32, I have no idea how to bleed a radiator, everyday my pipes are making a terrible racket and I don’t know where to start... why doesn’t anyone tell us about these things before we have to actually ‘adult’ and at what point are we suppose to suddenly know how to do these ‘adult’ activities?!

Please tell me I’m not the only one ‘pretending’ to adult here? There must be things you wish someone had told you about before you actually had to fend for yourself and fake adulting

DH and I googled bleeding radiators today and then did it (because we were both home, either one of us could have done it alone). This thread has reminded me to check the boiler pressure! My old flat’s boiler needed re-pressurised regularly so that one I don’t need to look up... Given our boiler is only 2 years old we’ve not needed to do this stuff for a while, google was to double check we were right rather than that we didn’t know.

My parents didn’t specifically teach me this stuff, but I picked most of it up as I went along. Nothing beats when we had to light the boiler pilot light with a match - mum couldn’t do it due to mobility issues so my sister and I (aged 12ish) had to!

I did a basic homeowners diy course at college when I was 25. I know do my own basic repairs and plumbing and have fixed a few friends washers 😂

My school tought us to budget, use a cheque book and make basic cheap meals. It should be all schools really.

Oh my kids must have gone to a brill school. Teachers taught them basic diy skills in their own time including car maintenance. Wish dad could have gone too he’s still crap

OP I also have an oil fired boiler which lives outside, plus an immersion heater upstairs. When Stbx bled the radiators, he did nothing with water pressure. I think my bedroom one needs doing. I'm working up to it

There really is something oddly satisfying about bleeding radiators, I don't understand it, but it's still satisfying.

I didn’t even have radiators in my parents home. First learnt this in my 30’s and still yet to actually do it myself. I figured to YouTube everything in life earlier however...

I tried to bleed my dads for the first time ever recently. Gurgling rads. No water came out. Checked boiler. Low pressure. Prised the fro t of the boiler off and worked out how to top up water to increase pressure. Heard a hissing sound. Bloody pipe had blown off the bottom of the hall radiator sprayi g water WVERYWHERE. It was not ideal! I had to clamp the pipe with a towel and wait for the pressure to run low enough that the water stopped spraying. And call an emergency plumber 🙄. Yeah for me

Bleeding radiators is one of the most satisfying things to do. Ever.

Can’t belive how many of you enjoy bleeding radiators... I’m thinking I’m just gonna do it.. it might actually be a pleasure I never knew ;) how would I know if my boiler needs the pressure sorting?

@FreeButtonBee oh no! What a nightmare!! Lol

I wish I ahd central heating to be honest. My apartment still has ancient and archiac storage heaters.

My dad showed me how to bleed the radiators as a teen and why, also changing lightbulbs, wiring a plug etc. Our neighbour recently asked if DH could bleed the radiators at her house for her - he confessed to me that he had no idea how! He’s generally pretty handy with DIY but grew up in a house with storage heating!

Bleeding is fun & satisfying. Do you have a bleeding key? I think you only need to check the pressure on your boiler if it is a modern combi one...but I could be wrong on that part.

Just to say don’t bleed unless heating off. Otherwise any water coming out will be hot!

I think my first ever ‘why don’t they do adulting lessons?!’ moment was when I learned that you have to change the filter in your cooker hood Now, nearly 10 years later, it seems like such an obvious thing that you would of course need to do, but at the time I remember thinking ‘how are you supposed to know this stuff??’

Lots of cooker filters have this sort of dye in them which turns red to tell you it needs replacing. Well, ours was so old that the red dye was actually dripping out of it onto our hob That’s when I googled it and finally realised what was happening!

Quite embarrassed to admit this one but I like to think there’ll be at least one person who reads this and thinks ‘ohhh that’s why my cooker hood is dripping red stuff!’

I just get the heating engineer to check all radiators when I get my annual service and gas certificate. My dh can do them but prefers to let professional do it.

The key! The fecking mystical key!

And the anxiety when your boiler then needs topping up, and you decide that you and YouTube are gonna do it and you will NOT call DH to do it 😬

Me, SDD11 and YouTube tried to fix the toilet once, after months of having to use the pumping-flushing method. We couldn’t even get the top off (unusual push-button arrangement).

I called a man. And because I made the call, that STILL counts as I fixed it.

Well, despite knowing how to bleed radiators (my otherwise hands off parenting Mum taught me when I was about 8, it was one of my jobs!), I discovered today that the button on a handbrake was not just to release it down, but also for when you engage it (I.e you press the button as you lift the handbrake when you park etc), I didn’t learn to drive until I was 32, have been driving for 15 years and every single time I’ve pulled a handbrake up it makes a crunching sound . TBH one of many adulting skils I lack!

@chipsandgin it makes me cringe when people put the handbrake on without pressing the button 😳

@squidgybanana if it's oil I don't think you need to re-pressurise the system
bury-st-edmunds-plumbers.co.uk/bleeding-air-inside-oil-fired-heating-system-radiators/

We have a key attached to a little plastic bottle thing to collect the water if it spills out. I'm old, I've sadly had to be an adult for ages. The bottle thing lets me secretly be a kid while I'm adulting.

I felt like super woman when I taught myself to bleed my oil fired boiler - love youtube

@SquidgyBanana from that photo it looks like you don't need a special radiator key to open the valve, a flathead screwdriver (or butter knife!) should do the job. Turn left (anticlockwise) to loosen, air will hiss out, when the noise changes/as soon as water appears tighten the valve again. Can be done with heating on or off but as pp said the water will be hot if the heating is on.