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I remember the first time I bled a radiator by myself and how amazed I was that a stone cold radiator suddenly became red hot once I had finished. It was a true sense of achievement even though I wasn't sure exactly what I had done. For those who don't know, radiators need to be full of water fir them to work, if air gets in then they stop working. If they don't stop working altogether then only a part of it will warm up which will be pretty useless. I am not sure why they called it bleeding rather than de-airing but it is still something that gives me a full sense of job satisfaction and makes me feel grown up.
My office is on the top floor of the house and the radiator frequently needs bleeding for some reason, maybe because of the distance between it and the boiler. It doesn't bother me though because it gives me an excuse to bleed it, which I did. I am always a bit disappointed when I have finished and you get the drizzle of water because it means that I no longer need to do it.
Ideally I would operate as a door-to-door radiator bleeder if I could charge enough to make it worthwhile. I imagine that most people know how to undertake this mundane task so if someone was to knock on the door and offer to do it they would probably turn down your offer to do it for a fee. Having said that, it isn't as daft as some of the jobs that used to exist and I don't doubt that if central heating had been a thing in the late 19th and early 20th century then a radiator bleeder would have pounded the pavements alongside the muffin man, rag and bone man, and the person with a big stick who used to reach up and tap on your window to get you out of bed for work. That's the trouble, everybody is too clever and self-sufficient these days so they don't need to employ people to do these jobs any more. Part of my problem is the fact that I am never not thinking creatively, so I am already weighing up the possibility of a podcast devoted to radiator bleeding.
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