You should make it a regular part of your Autumn maintenance program to change the filter through which heating oil passes before it goes into the burner of a furnace. The filter, in most cases, is usually located on the tank and looks like an oil filter or cartridge filter. Changing it is extremely simple and will only take a minute or two. It’s important to remember to purge the air from the system after you have completed the filter change. This is a necessity. If it’s not carried out, the burner will not run due to air being in the system. It is therefore important that you get all the air out of the fuel line.

1 Go to the heating oil tank and find the oil filter and housing on it. It is commonly mounted on the outlet of the tank and has a shutoff valve between the tank and the filter housing.

2 Switch off the valve that controls the flow from the tank to the filter. This allows you to remove the filter and avoid spilling heating oil everywhere.

3 If you don’t already have one, obtain a drain pan and position it under the filter housing to catch any drips when you pull the filter out. There will still be fuel in the filter and the line going to the furnace, so you should expect an amount of fuel drainage.

4 On the top center of the filter housing is the retaining bolt. Locate it and remove the bolt with a wrench while at the same time holding the base of the housing with your free hand. Gently lower the housing down and remove the filter cartridge from it.

5 Install the new filter and replace the gasket on the filter housing with a new one. A useful trick is to rub a small amount of fuel oil on the gasket at this point. After this raise the filter and housing into place.

6 Re-install the retaining bolt and be sure to tighten it firmly with a wrench. Turn on the valve from the tank and check for leaks. You also have to remove the air from the filter and bleed the line before running the furnace.

7 Locate the bleeder for the filter; this is the small bolt on top of the filter housing. Open it with a wrench to allow the air to escape from the housing, leaving the screw open until you see oil come out of the hole.

8 Close the bleeder screw and bleed the line at the oil pump on the furnace. Carefully dispose of the filter and any fuel that ran into the drip pan. Check with your local rubbish disposal company if you are not sure where or how to get rid of it.