A calendar that surprises people from the coast
In Torrevieja the phone rings in July and it is air conditioning. Forty kilometres inland, in Alcoy, Ibi, Castalla or Elda, the peak arrives in November and it is heating. Two different businesses in the same province.
The practical consequence is scheduling. In October there are slots. By the second week of November, with the whole comarca calling on the same Monday, the wait runs into days exactly when the house is cold.
What a service covers
The burner and heat exchanger are cleaned, system pressure is checked and bled if needed, the flue is inspected and the safety devices are confirmed to operate. On gas boilers combustion is measured, not estimated.
It is an hour of work that changes nothing visible, and that is exactly why it gets forgotten every year.
What you can do before calling
Look at the pressure gauge: if the needle sits below the marked band, the system has lost pressure and many boilers lock out for that reason alone. Topping up is a simple operation covered in the appliance manual.
Bleed any radiator that is warm only across the top. That symptom is air in the system in nine cases out of ten, and a key and a cloth sort it.
Seven months standing still is the real problem
A boiler that has been off from March to October does not fail from wear, it fails from sitting. The pump seizes, the seals dry out, the diverter valve stays where it was.
Firing it up one October afternoon, letting it run twenty minutes and listening is the cheapest test there is. If something is wrong, you know a month ahead.
Thermostat and programming, where the money goes
A badly programmed thermostat costs more than an old boiler that is well set. Most inland houses run better on a steady moderate temperature than on sharp on-off cycles, because thick walls take time to respond.
If the house never quite warms up however much it consumes, the problem is rarely boiler output. It is usually radiator sizing or insulation, and that gets calculated before anything is replaced.
