Don’t get caught cold ahead of further winter woes, installers urged
Posted by: electime 6th February 2026
With wintry weather hitting its peak and a warning of a cold snap coming in over large parts of the UK, installers are once again being urged to be prepared for heating system breakdowns and increased callouts.
The call comes from Andy Thompson, national sales manager for plumbing and heating at Wilo UK, following the Met Office warning that Storm Chandra is going to set temperatures plunging and raise the possibility of snowy and icy weather conditions returning.
With ‘heating season’ in full swing and more potential cold spells even after Storm Chandra, Andy shares four practical tips to help installers get ready for the expected weather and keep heating systems in top condition:
- Prioritise pump health checks – Monitoring heating circulation pumps and their performance is critical to preventing costly breakdowns. Installers should verify pump settings are correct, and the system is free from airlocks.
- Stock up on spares – installers should have replacements and heating spares ready and waiting in their vans. This is especially important considering early January’s Storm Goretti ground large parts of the country to a halt through widespread snow.
- Check replacement pumps are sized correctly – if pumps in heating systems do need replacing, ensure they are sized right. Too small and they can fail prematurely if demand in the heating system peaks and causes them to overwork. Equally, oversized pumps can use more energy than required, unnecessarily increasing costs for homeowners and tenants. It is also important to make sure that replacement pumps are ERP compliant, as the use of counterfeit pumps can be dangerous and use considerably more energy.
- Check pipes and pumps are lagged – frozen pipes and pumps are a constant threat and can cause bursts. Installers should help to check pipes and systems are lagged to prevent this from happening.
Andy said: “We’ve already seen temperatures hit plummet to as low as -12.5°C this season, and the strain being put on boilers and heating systems is really being told by the increasing number of breakdowns and consequent callouts that installers are being rapidly deployed to.
“The advice we’d give is to always be prepared, and by following four simple tips, it can help save homeowners and tenants a lot of hassle, even protecting vulnerable groups from danger, and ensuring they have comfortable heat through the rest of the winter.”
To find out more about Wilo, click here: https://wilo.com/gb/en/
