Get your system up to scratch now – well in advance of winter – and you’ll reap the benefits on your energy bills, says Chris Bates

An annual boiler service will help ensure your central heating system remains energy efficient

When Britain enjoys a long, hot summer, we understandably want to soak up every drop of it. I wouldn’t want to shatter the illusion, but by the time you’ve picked up this edition of Build It in the shops, we could be as little as a couple of months away from the start of the heating season.

Now is actually the perfect time to check over our central heating systems and look at ways to improve performance, before we actually start paying for the gas or oil we use. But for many of us, it’s a case of out of sight, out of mind when it comes to our boilers. Of course, you’ll always be using yours to provide domestic hot water – but the problem is that the unused parts of the system can collect dirt, limescale and other issues since they were last used.

Years ago, I was caught out myself when the motorised valve (the bit that controls the flow of heated water) seized up the first time I tried to get the radiators going. Cue three days waiting in the cold for a plumber to come out, plus a £200-odd bill before I even started putting warmth into the leaky old Victorian cottage I lived in at the time!

And I’m not the only one: according to a recent survey by Worcester, Bosch Group, one in five of us have never had our boilers serviced. “From checking our car MOT to updating antivirus software on our computers, we regularly ensure the important appliances around us are working to our best”, says Martyn Bridges, director of technical communication and product management at Worcester. “Unfortunately this attitude doesn’t stretch to boilers – despite the fact they are on day in, day out throughout the year – and they’re largely forgotten about until they actually stop working.” So, what can you do to make sure your boiler-fired central heating is in top shape; and how can you improve its efficiency?