Does anyone have a clue how much it would cost to have a heating engineer out?

I know that's a bit vague :p but I've no idea what the actual problem is!  All I know is that my downstairs radiators are not working at all, and the upstairs ones aren't as good as normal.  Blockage is likely of course, but I've bled all the radiators and no joy, and there's no heat in any of the pipes feeding the radiators so I'm guessing whatever's wrong is somewhere harder to get to (and probably more specialised than my expertise :-P).

I'm not insured for this though.  Grr.

Why can't these things happen in summer?

Ours charges £50 an hour :-)

Last week I paid £70 for an engineer to come and fix ny oils fired boiler. I had to wait a week for the appointment.
Your boiler is working otherwise the upstairs radiators would be cold. Have you been able to check the water pump is still working, it should be somewhere near the boiler. A couple of years ago our pump stopped working, when i was on the phone to the engineer he suggested giving the pump a tap with a hammer, presto it started working and the rads got warm.
Best to ring an engineer and get it fixed asap

In December we had a blockage in the hose from our oil tank to the boiler, it took the bloke half an hour to fix and it cost £65.

Hiya, sorry to hear about the problems. My hubby is a plumber. He says it sounds like an airlock. He said to turn the heating off. Turn off all the radiators which are currently working. Then turn the heating back on. He said that this then should force heat into the radiators which are out of balance.(which are not working). If the radiators have TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) take the top of the TRV off and check the centre pin is all the way out. My hubby said the worst case scenario is that the pump is on its way out (if you have an unvented system (a system with a hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard- there will be a pump in there)

Have you had any work done recently where the heating system has been emptied?

Call outs do vary dependant on the company. The approx price is 40-60 per hour plus parts. It may be worth you contacting British Gas or another company like that if the above info doesnt work as I think you can pay a monthly fee  to cover your heating system each year.

Fingers crossed the info works and it is just an airlock. xxx

we have a insurcan cover with homesever £15 a month for a service,24 hour call out,repairs and parts,
we were with bristish gas but a usal they do not look after their older custormers with a good deal like they do for the new ones that way we change

Thanks all.

Crazy:

> If the radiators have TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) take the top of the TRV off and check the centre pin is all the way out.

I have no idea what you just said!  :-P  Is that the little thing at one end, with a crosshead screw in the top?  Blond, me?  Much!!

I've had no work done involving the heating at all, I moved in in Nov 06.

Gummy:
Honestly, I've no idea where the pump is!  Dad seems to think it might be in the loft by the overflow tank as my boiler is in the wall behind my fireplace.  If I can scrounge a ladder from next door I'll get up there and have a peek.