How to clear airlocks and restore hot water or heating 

People like you are sent to this world with a mission to serve . God bless you AL.

Cheers! Work on the water main down the road emptied the cold water tank and caused an air lock. You saved me paying for a Sunday callout, plus got me in the good books with the other half! Luckily we have an old fashioned mixer with no non-return valve downstairs. Turned both taps on and blocked the spout. The whole system juddered for a while and burst back to life again. You certainly know your stuff. Thank you.

Great videos. Today I've changed my kitchen mixer tap and cleared the resulting airlock using these tutorials. great work. saved myself a few quid and learnt something in the process.👍

Absolutely brilliant simple solution. I had little or no pressure in the hot water system after replacing a leaking header tank and after some time spent trying to problem solve this, I looked for a solution on the net and you came up. I did as you suggested and connected a short length of hose between the hot and cold water taps in the bathroom and bingo, ten seconds later I have everything back to "as it should be", thank you very much!!

thank you great advice.had no cold water in bathroom. connected a piece of garden hose, hot pipe to cold pipe and turned hot water valve on. cleared the air lock immediately . saved me a late night trying to figure it out or the cost of a plumber . many thanks

You are a genius Dereton33, before i watched your video , it took me 4 hour to try and clear airlock and did not .After watching your video, it took me 20 minutes. Would just like to enfasize on the fact that you need to do this on every single problem tap, it is not one tap solves all. But do every single problem one. Thank you and keep up the good work.

Best teacher I've ever seen. Imagine being an apprentice and having you as a teacher.

you sir are a flippin legend! drained my hot water cylinder but when I'd filled it no water would come out, about to start checking the ball valve on the header tank but its a nightmare to get to, checked youtube, saw your vid, hand over the basin mixer tap upstairs, on with hot. . . . . nothing, turned on the cold . . . . . blop-blop-blop. . . . . hot water!! brilliant :)

Great video solved my problem. I had changed the downstairs taps, after the hot water would not come out except a dribble. I had to go through the process of blowing through with the hose pipe, third attempt solved it, had to rely blast it. Thanks again.

Al, you saved the day. I used the very first method of pushing the thumb against the mixer tap in the kitchen and it worked. The plumbers drained the loft tank to sort out a leakage. They did a good job bleeding out the system and made sure the cold water taps were working fine. But they forgot to check the hot water taps. I can't blame them - it was Friday night and they did hell of a job fixing the loft tank leak dripping into my bedroom.

Thank you sir! I’m so happy I’ve managed to do all this by myself today, tap repairs and then air locks ..thank you!! ....and I’m a 54 year old woman. 🥂

Thank you very much for your advice in this video...cleared air bubble out of hot water pipes in no time, using lope from hot to cold tap to blow out airlock...fantastic!

Hello Nasir , Fist go into the loft and check your F and E tank is full , then check your central heating pump is working , make sure your room stat is set well up , say to 25 degrees , check there is no air in the radiators also check the motorised valve is working. Kind regards, al.

Excellent Advice! Hot water again at last! Thank you

Realy appreciate this help - thank you

Hi Mick is that the small F and E tank you can see or a large water tank for domestic feed to your hot water tank? The F and E tank is a small plastic tank about 18 inches x 10. That is the one that you have to check is full . If it is ok and your pump is fine you may have to flush your system . Just drain the system add a system cleaner for the recommended time on the bottle , then drain out and add inhibitor , bleed out all air and you should be back to normal . Did you try balancing the system as I mentioned earlier? Regards, al.

Hi Al, great video - thank you! I had an airlock after replacing a radiator and your bleed screw at the pump was the solution - thanks again!

Thank you for this video. I sorted out my airlock and have my hot water running again now :-)

Thanks so much. Such a simple solution, opening the nuts near the pump, to rid air of the central heating system.

Thank you. Boiler wouldn't fire up. But after watching your video. Bleeding the pump worked for me.

Super, thanks, I connected my cold flexible pipe from under my sink to the hot pipe part and did it that way!! You rock

Hello Olatungi Olakigbe first thing to check is that your water pressure is up to full steam , just check that the main stop tap which is usually under the sink is turned on fully and not cranked down. Also that the water company has not turned the water pressure down in your area. It may also be a pressure switch problem normally on the boiler,do though check all connections on the boiler are OK, Lastly check the boiler pressure is at least one and a half bars. Kind regards, al.

You are a genius! Thank you. Your advice worked a treat. Very happy Hubbie!😎

Thanks for posting this video! Hose pipe from cold to hot tap got rid of the airlock in the hot water system after I drained it to fix the shower. Super job! God bless you, Joel :)

My brother is blind but has asked me to say thank you as he listens intently to your excellent videos and has become quite the amateur plumber and has not needed to call a plumber since he discovered your youtube channel now he can do everything himself - Dont ask me how he does it not being able to see but he is old school much like yourself and prefers to fix everything himself! I have learned a lot from your vids too - You exemplify the old school expert plumber - easily the best plumbing videos and best presented on youtube! I do have a little problem for you if you dont mind me asking? I live in an old 60's block of 6 flats - 3 per side fed by two water tanks each side - one tank is joined to the other and the 1st feeds the old style vented cylinder type hot water cylinders - the other tank is fed from the mains and has the ballcock and feeds the cold water to the bathrooms1 Problem i have been having is a constant blockage once every few weeks in the cold water feed - i do the usual connect a magic hose to the kitchen mains water tap and attach the other end of the hose by removing the cistern float valve assembly to the pipe with a tap converter and a bit of rubber as the bath and basin taps are too hard to attach the hose and blast the cold water back up to the tank - i find that by standing on the magic hose and letting the pressure build up in the hose it gives much more of a pressure blast of cold water though the pipes and back up to the tank than mains pressure alone and it usually clears the blockage quickly and works for a few weeks before becoming blocked again., The main thing is that after the blockage is removed the cold water tap in the bathroom basin has literally a tiny cold water flow leading me to believe it may not be an airlock but probably a piece of fibreglass even although the cold tank in the loft is covered. Its a real pain having to do this every few weeks - any ideas? I do believe the airlock happens every time the cold water basin tap is opened for a while - have you seen this before? I have thought of removing the connection between the cistern and the bath and shoving one of those endoscopes up the pipes (after shutting off the main gate valve) to see if there is a blockage where the cold water basin tap joins into the main pipe that leads into the bathroom but it will be a lot of hassle! From what i can gather fibreglass usually gets blocked at the gate valve? The thing is my neighbour has told me he has had to backflush his bathroom as his pipes have had the same problem a few times! Its a real head scratcher!

Thanks for your handy hints awesome

thank you for your help that was our problem i used the hot water valve at the washing maching becuse all of our faucet were the mixer types

Hope that helps you benny. Regards, al.

Thank you Sir very straight forward. Most helpful tips. Thank You.

Leaving comment here although not related to this video, it's the quickest way to respond with your channel blocked. Why is that? Anyway, thanks very much Al for your reply and advice. You really do a brilliant job giving everyone the benefit of your experience. Top man! :>)

Awesome! Hose from cold to hot fixed our hot water.

Muchas Gracias! I had an air lock after an emergency drain, because I banjo'd a valve compression joint removing a rad. Once I got everything sorted, sealed, and refilled the heating wasn't firing up. The screw in the pump being a bleed valve was a little nugget of gold that got everything up and running again.

I built a outdoor wood boiler, didn't kow about airlocks and steam popped out of the pump, prolly where the airlock was. thanks for your advice

Totally saved my bacon. Thanks mate. Real hero

Thank you, much appreciated! Got me out of a cold spot!!!

That was a great help, thanks a lot

Your a star , thanks for your help !!!

I changed the zone valve and actuator and had the worst airlock I’ve ever had and I had hot water but not much in the way of heating. After letting the radiator , which is 2 of them joined together , either side of the living room wall drain for a couple of minutes and then re bleeding all of them and re balancing them it’s back to normal. Once again you’ve pulled me from the fire ! if i need to solve a plumbing problem i always come here and see what you have to say about it

Thanks a million, that help, kitchen tap worked a treat, phew! :)

Hey Al, love these videos. In a 10yr old house with 10mm mirobore pipes. I guess you know what's coming. I bought the house 5yrs ago and in that time have never had a fully working CH system. Poor flow caused by sludge as the previous owners never treated the system. Anyway, after constant attempts at using CH cleaner & inhibitor, pressuring it with mains water via the hose, taking off every radiator to clean them, changing valves I'm still with a system where the top of the house rads don't properly heat up. Any suggestions?? Cheers

Hello Al. Please can you help. I have an Ideal HE30 isar Combi Boiler and the Hot water syatem has been playing up lately. whenever I turn hot water ON either in the Bath or Kitchen, it gets hot a little and then go cold after few seconds. Central Heating is fine with all Radiators performing well and I have Water tank in the Loft. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks

thanks saved the day

Sounds like you have air in the system , bleed all the radiators and re-pressure the boiler to one and a half bar. Also check there is no air in the pump. Regards, al.

Thanks for posting this video, very informative. Should I have all the hot taps open? When I connect the hot & cold bath taps.

Thanks for the tip.

I'm a plumbing and heating engineer and I think differently. Most hardware or homeware stores sell tap adapters to hoses, I have 1. Most modern taps including basin and kitchen have a removable universal filter at the end of the spout that can be removed using a spanner. Screw the adaptor in and connect using appropriate connectors to outside tap. You will generally only get airlocks in Gravity systems. So you need to use the mains water as this is of a higher pressure. If you just connect both taps together at a basin, chancees are there both gravity pressure, rendering it useless. Or if you have a wet and dry Hoover, connect the Hoover spout to the tap spout and suck away.....

Hello Al, quick reply, many thanks for that.I will try what you say. Other info, It's an old system, no combi, I looked in the airing cupboard, and can see the h/water cylinder, with the header tank on top, the boiler might be a a back boiler. When we put the heating on, after about 10 mins the boiler switches off? I have tried turning the thermostate up, but it makes no difference. Do you think it stops because its not circulating? (pump failed, air lock, or blocked system)

Checked the pump. It's hot and the motor spins fine. I undid the screw and a jet of water shot out. Got a small screwdriver and quickly put it inside and it spins around fine. Could it be a water block in the diverter or a dodgy expansion vessel? Many thanks.

Hello I have a baxi solo 15 he. The radiators aren't working I'm not sure how to get these going again?

No problem get back to me if you have any more hassels. Kind regards, al.

Hi, I use the washing machine valves with a washing machine hose connected between the two, works brilliant everytime. I carry a spare wash machine in the van just for that purpose

Great knowledge.thanks.

great work your the best :)

Hi there, great videos once again!! I have a Baxi Potterton Performa 28i combi-boiler. It is 11 years old. I had a bad water leak in the boiler diverter valve and so the rubber diaphragm washer and the diverter differential was replaced as well as the switch that sits on the diverter. Now that the leak is fixed, we now have barely any heat to all 10 radiators in the house. We have bled the radiators to no avail. The GCH tries to come on, but all we hear is hissing from all of the radiators when the heating tries to kick in. The pilot light kicks in for about a minute on the boiler and then it clicks off before any of the radiators have had a proper chance to heat up fully. Any ideas what might be causing this problem? Our entire house (also 11 years old) is freezing cold, as the radiators are all only luke warm (barely). Many thanks.

Hi Al, Thanks for this video! Very informative, but I still can't seem to get the airlock out of our hot water system, It's simply a Vaillant Eco Tec Pro 24 boiler connected to hot water/heating. We have no tank as it's a flat roof house and no storage heater/hot water cylinder. The hot water works but the pressure is a fraction of what it used to be before our landlord changed a basin tap in the bathroom. I am suspecting an airlock as the hot water often splutters. I tried the washing machine connector trick, tried blasting the cold water through the hot water for 5 seconds at a time repeatedly. no luck, The shower will completely cut out if the water is being run elsewhere in the house, even if the other tap is running at a trickle/cystern refilling. I've also tried re pressurising the boiler, didn't really do much. We're not running the heating as yet. Landlord doesn't care, any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hello Al, I wonder if you can advise me please, my son is renting a flat, and his heating system is not working (the landlord doesn't want to know) He has 5 rads on the system, the one in the bathroom gets warm, as does the one next to it in the hall, and the next in the line, in the bedroom, gets less warm. The one in the lounge is stone cold, as is the one in the kitchen. We open the bleed valve in the lounge to see if water would shoot out under pressure, but it does not, just a couple of drops trickle down the side of the rad then it stops. This would seem to indicate, either a blocked, system, or an air lock? I have placed the 3 way valve in the open (and locked) position, but it still the same. I could try the centre screw in the pump to realese any air, and what about connecting the hot and cold taps together and flushing mains water through it? And any way to check the pump is actually pumping? Many thanks in advance. Mike.

I had to drain my heating sys to re locate a radiator , now my heating works fine but i have no domestic hot water plenty of flow but no heat , zone vales operating ok , i have a megaflow system ??

No problem get back to me if you still have the problem. regards, al.

My gardener accidentally broke our mains water pipe while digging in the flower bed. We turned the mains water off in order to fix the pipe - a lot of hot water came rushing out the other end of the pipe (I didn't know at the time but it is apparently hot water came from the geyser). Now the water pipe is fixed and not leaking anymore and gardener left for the day. I was surprised to find that there's no hot water comping out of our tap at all. I tried unblocking the waterlock following your advice but a bit of cold water would come out of the hot tap for approx half a minute and then nothing. What can I do next to unblock the airlock?

We’ve been getting a lot of airlocks lately and have to use a vacuum to get rid of the airlock but also it keeps happening a lot we have an old tank upstairs which isn’t very good are there any other suggestions

Hi there, I so hope that you read this msg and could help or have so advice for me.... I have no heating at all, however I do have hot water. I turned my electric of 2 days ago to fit some new lights in my house but when I turned it back on, I had hot water but no heating at all, none of my rads were getting hot at all,,, have you any advice on what it could be that stopping the rads from getting hot?? Many thanks an sorry for bothering you on a Sunday... Steve.

HI Kim

I live in a upstairs garage apartment with a gas water heater. the tenents in main house which is split into 2 apartments have electric water heaters. none of our water heaters are hooked up to the outside washing machine so why all of a sudden is there warm water filling up washer? we always kept the washer temp setting on cold/cold because it would never work on any other setting due to not working when we set it on hot or warm setting. someone switched temp setting to warm/warm and the water is warm. how can this be if like I said its not hooked up to any water or piping from our water heaters? washing machine is hooked up to an outside spicket. I just want to make sure the other tenents dont have access to my water heater which will raise our gas bill. is there a way I can tell if its for some reason hooked up to our water heater line?

Thank mate really helped at my wits end until I did what you said 👍

Dreton33 thanks but I now realise that I'd had this problem with same rad about 3 years ago and the solution has just come back to me in a brainwave, I remember closing off the inlet valve overnight on said rad while leaving the outlet valv open, next morning an hour after the system switched itself on I waited till the temperature was up to normal approx 40 mins then I opened the inlet valve and watta know the rad was 100% hot in a few mins

Hi, if I undo the little screw on the pump, should the pump be on or off please?

Recently we noticed, that Hot water flow in the bath is much lower than in Kitchen. I presume that it started when we filled the bath (and drained the tank in loft)... The flow re-established to the same level in like 3 days... but plumber came and replaced the pipe which goes from Boiler (Hot water cylinder) to system. it had 3 90 degree elbows, now there's no elbows, and there is one single bended 93 degree pipe... the shower tap is the one with thermostat, bath and sink taps are mixers.

Dear Sir ,I have a problem with my Shower ,it seems air blocked ,there is only a dribble coming out the head,its feed from the loft in my bungalow,,How would you cure this...As I dont live here most weeks in winter I normally drain down the system,incase of a bust pipe .Maybe I should look at fitting some sort of air escape valve...

Hi there, wonder if you can advise me. I have an oldish 4 pipe gravity system, I have replaced a radiator on the ground floor. All the rads heat up nicely, but the gravity fed hot water does not. It seems that the pumped heating takes priority over the gravity hw. My question, should all 4 pipes from the boiler heat up at the same rate, or does this suggest an air lock in the hw feed. There are no diverted valves, just timer and thermostat. The bathroom rad is also on the gravity feed. Keep having to bleed this.

I'll give the nut on the pump join a try in a bit. Got a massive airlock that shuts the heating off and no water comes out the pump bleed screw either. The impeller is spinning. It's all fed via the tank in our bedroom, old 1930 water tanks.

cheers

I had new radiator installed in my hallway. It doesnt warm up. It has a drain valve connected to the in pipe. I followed your advice of sticking a hose pipe on it and let it run (while the heating was on). As this was happening, the in pipe started to get hot and so did the radiator. I let it run for about 5 minutes and turned off the drain valve and removed the pipe. 10 minutes later the in pipe was cold and so was the radiator. I've bled all the radiators, the pump etc, i'm scratching my head a bit with this one. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated :)

easiest way I found to clear a air lock is if the washing machine has a hot feed is to loop the mains cold to the hot washing machine valve. open up up both valves.

Hi, why is it that when I turn the bleed screw on the pump it sucks more air in ?? I thought it should be the other way around, thanks

thanks for your video, but unfortunately running a garden hose to the washing machine hot tape mad n difference to us having no water from the hot taps. any ideas?

Dereton33 Thanks for that answer , , I know the coil is a heat exchanger ,but as you say the water should be hotter, as the new 40G cylinder is only in 5-6 years Ill explore the idea of flushing the system, when I release the nut on the elbow I let some water drip out and it does improve the heat in the hot water, because I got an airlock some time back I drained the system and fitted an automatic air valve within 2" of the elbow, I must try tapping it (the auto valve) ,as the weather has gone cold I don't relish draining the system at present but Ill soldier on and thanks, again for the response Your not bad at the piece to camera,no ahs or ohs,

i will try this tomorrow on a system where hot and cold fed from cold tank are just a trickkle. i will let you know how i get on. Thank you for the tips

hi I'm getting heating but still no hot water I have a ideal logic heat 18 always had heating but for some reason no hot water plz help thank you

Good video, but here is a query an indirect cylinder 1" feeder pipes to the coil, very hot,but water coming out of cylinder is tepid, There is an automatic bleeder valve just beside the instantor elbow fitting heading into the top of the coil, same temperature at the bottom of the coil, the mystery is why the water in the 40 Gal insulated cylinder is not getting as hot as the pipes servicing the coil Thanks if you can help. Bill.

I've got 8 rads 4 upstairs 4 down, one upstairs won't heat up fully I've bled n bled but no result I've replaced this one recently with a new one just in case there was a dirt problem but the new one is heating below par just like the old one, advice anyone?

Thanks

This might sound really silly but where is the pump situated on a combi boiler?

Would you undo the nuts near you're pump when it's all off?or on.

very handy :)

Hi I have problem with the vent pipe hot water. When I open the bath hot and cold water the tank overflow. Any suggestion

Spent an hour head scratching and no heating. Undid the bleed nut on the pump and as you say, it is now tickertyboo many thanks

Thanks - checked the header tank and it wasn't refilling - one dead mouse and a bit of freeing up later and it's sorted

thanx for respons I sure appreciate it , but I found the problem, giant water leak under house.

does this method apply to shower also? if not any tips how to fix the airlock in the shower??

Hi. My wife and I have been having trouble with hot water in our apartment. We have hot water in our kitchen, but nothing but cold water coming out of our bathroom sink and our tub when we turn the hot water all the way on and leave the cold water off. Our landlord refuses to hire a licensed plumber and either looks at it themselves or send a maintenance person (none of which are licensed plumbers) to look at it. All they do is go to the boiler room in the building and look at the boiler. They come back with: the pilot light was out and we relit it, there was condensation on he boiler so we put insulation on the pipes, no one else has complained about the hot water but you. We never had a problem until this new management company took over. All I know is we have now been without hot water for a week now and are getting the run around. If we were a week late with our rent, we would be out on the street. We tried to hire a plumber ourselves; however, they won’t come out because we don’t own the property. Our landlord will not let us hire a plumber on our own, nor will they to resolve this problem. Does anyone have an idea as to what is causing us to have no hot water in our bathroom ? Unfortunately, we cannot afford to move somewhere else or we would. Thank you.

Money is really tight just now and any help would be appreciated! PLEASE HELP! I have hot water tank in loft and both a big and small cold water tank. I changed my bath taps for new ones. I got airlock. Seen on RU-vid about airlock in pipes connecting garden hose/tap trick into the bath pipes - it fixed the cold water, however the hot taps (bathroom, WC, kitchen) if 2 taps are on at the same time, then only one tap will work, the other taps won’t have any water come out them at all? thanks!

Help I'm getting no water out of hot water fawcetts in whole house.

Air lock on power shower how to fix? Thanks

P.S... The boiler pressure was also turned up to 1.0 after bleeding all 10 radiators. Thanks.

Hi Al we have a issue with our water tank or a valve maybe im guessing, our heating comes on and when it cuts off there's one knock sound followed by a sort of scraping noise, sounds like its coming from the tank cupboard, any ideas?

It is hard to understand due to english

Meant tube not lope!!!

thankyou so much! u can get an nvq2 in plumbing and not get taught this!

Don't trust Robert Heath Heating,they didn't spot that and now a new boiler is needed!