Who knows about boilers?

[BertieBotts]

My boiler has a little meter type thing on it labelled "Bar", this goes from 0-5 and the two ends are highlighted in red. My landlord ages ago showed me this and a little radiator key type thing which you're supposed to use to relieve the pressure in it. However he kind of half mumbled it and then decided "Oh but you don't need to worry about that anyway, it's a man's job really. You get your boilers serviced once a year so they'll deal with that for you." (ie: Don't worry your pretty female head)

Anyway, being a lazy person, I took his point that I have the boiler serviced once a year, and never bothered about it, except now it's in the red part close to 0 and the boiler is making a noise like a cat purring.

So, what am I looking for to sort it out, and should I be relieving the pressure since the pressure is showing that it's too low?

if the needle is approaching zero, then the pressure is too low usually due to slight leakage and needs to be topped up. The radiator key is not what you need, though it will do no harm to bleed the radiators of any gas after topping up.

If it is not topped up the boiler will stop working.

If it needs doing more often than every year or two, it needs looking at. Apart from leaks, overfilling it will cause the Pressure Relief Valve in the boiler to open, and water will squirt out through the pipe which goes through the wall behind the boiler and is turned round so it squirts against the wall and causes a horrible green stain.

Once these valves have operated, they generally won't seal properly again, and will drip for ever or until replaced. It is not a very expensive part but will need a Gas Safe Engineer to change it.

It would take too long to try to write the instructions here. If it is due a service, you could ask for that to be done. Or you could inform the owner and ask him to deal with it. Or you could study this

Ah okay, in that case I'll probably contact the boiler maintenance company. I have a direct number for them so I don't have to bother my landlord, he's told me to do this in the past. I think he has a contract with them or something.

Oh although hang on... could it have been caused by installing a new appliance? I put a dishwasher in recently.

dishwasher will not affect the pressure in the boiler.