VIDEO: How to Flush Ya Boilah! DIY Boiler Maintenance Pro Tips

Hey, first-time homeowners, if you want your boiler to keep on boilin’, you need to be more diligent about how often you’re flushing it. Oh, also, your boiler … needs flushing.

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Don’t look so guilty. Truth is, not everyone knows how to flush a boiler because not every household has one. That’s because, where I’m from, most homes use furnaces to heat their living space and water heaters to heat their water — as the vast majority of U.S. houses do. In fact, only about one-quarter as many American homes have boilers — which circulate superheated water via pipes to radiators to create steam heat and radiant heat — most of them concentrated in the Northeast.

As dedicated DIYers, our motto to homeowners is, “If we can do it, they can do it.” But if we can’t do it, and they can’t do it … somebody’s gotta do it. That’s why we traveled to HomeServe’s Brooklyn-Queens Training Center in New York City to have one of our HomeServe homies — a bona fide HomeServe technician to boot — show us how to flush a boiler and help all you homeowners determine whether flushing your boiler is something you could be, or should be, doing for yourselves.

For the record, homeowners should be making sure their boiler gets flushed at least once a year. That’ll help prevent sediment buildup in their tank that’ll calcify over time, reducing the boiler’s effectiveness in heating the home and making their system work harder, which can increase heating bills and reduce the lifespan of the appliance.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the least doable for the average homeowner, our expert rated boiler flushing a 1 — which doesn’t sound too bad at all! Just follow these steps and you’ll be flushing like Queens:

• Connect a garden hose to the drain valve on the tank

• Place the other end in a bucket.

• Keeping the boiler on, open the drain valve for a few seconds and let the pressure push out sediment.

• Close the valve.

• Turn off power to the unit.

• Shut off the water to the boiler.

• Let the pipes cool for around five hours.

• Release the boiler tank’s vacuum by allowing air into the tank to help push water out of the drain.

• Allow a small volume of water into the tank at a time

• Let it drain out completely.

• Repeat until sediment is flushed out and the water runs clear.

• Turn the valve to the off position.

• Disconnect the drain hose.

• Turn the water back on.

• Turn on the hot water faucet and run it to purge air from the line.

Watch the video above and decide for yourself whether flushing your home’s boiler is a DIY dilemma or a problem for the pros — and let us know in the comments!

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