Cleaning Out Central Heating System

[Leoki]

Good morning

I am planning on manually cleaning out my central heating system (vented) because of a build up of sludge. I am going to use sentinel X400, add this to the system and let it run around for a week or two and then flush this from the system (I am not going down the power flush route due to concerns over it creating additional problems and also the cost involved).

When i come to flush the water out through the system what would you suggest as the best way of doing this to ensure that i get as much of the muck out of the system. I can think of a couple of ways of going about this but would appreciate a view from another person. I was thinking of -

1. Drain the system, refill until full and use the volume/head of water to come down through the system and flush. Repeat process again.

2. Drain the system, refill until full, use the volume/head of water to come down through the system but have the f/e tank with running running into it at the same time so there is a constant flow of water.

 

[buckley plumb]

you could remove each radiator and flush out with a hose .or i manualy cold mains flush -or i cap the vent and feed to the cistern in the loft then cold mains flush with mains water by removing a radiator or boiler connections and fitting hose to tap on one pipe the other to a drain and open a rad at a time . there is a video on youtube showing this method

ant

 

[Leoki]

buckley plumb - do you have details of the video on youtube ?

 

[buckley plumb]

toms top tips, how to flush a central heating system

hope this helps

ant

 

[Leoki]

buckley plumb - i have viewed toms tips video, it has now given me a way forward. Just to be sure i presume you isolate the supply to the f/e tank and then plug the feed and expansion pipes. You close all of the radiators except for one and then flush one at a time. I take it the radiator just cleaned gets closed and then a another one is opened. Do you need to close both valves on each radiator or would closing the TRV be enough to close the radiators waiting to be flushed ?

 

[Heating-eng]

You can do the job nearly as well without the powerflush machine.
First of all drain all the water from the system and bleed the rads to remove all the water.
Next add X400 or deposit remover and then fill back up (do not bleed the rads)
Then run the system until hot.
Then turn all your rads off apart from one.
then turn one more rad on and turn the other one off.
then carry on around all the system as above.
next turn all the rads back on and then drain the system back down.
I would advise to fill up and drain down a few times to get rid of the X400.
Then i would fit a Magnaclean and fill the system back up and then add some X100 to keep it clean.

Hope this helps.

 

[Leoki]

Heating-eng - Thanks for the response, can i just check that when people refer to turning off a rad is it enough to turn off just the TRV, or do you always need to do the lockshield valve as well.

 

[Heating-eng]

Heating-eng - Thanks for the response, can i just check that when people refer to turning off a rad is it enough to turn off just the TRV, or do you always need to do the lockshield valve as well.

The TRV would be fine.

 

[buckley plumb]

hi sorry for the delay yes thats right . the only problem sometimes is that the cylinder or boiler can not be isolated

ant

 

[Heating-eng]

hi sorry for the delay yes thats right . the only problem sometimes is that the cylinder or boiler can not be isolated

ant

Not sure why you would isolate the boiler .I would always run the system hot and keep boiler connected and turn it onto heating only if possible.

 

[buckley plumb]

sorry was on about original cold flushing using mains water. and connecting to a radiator . is x400 ok to use in realy old systems or is it to powerful

ant

 

[Leoki]

buckley plumb & heating-eng, thankyou both for your advice

 

[Heating-eng]

I have never had a problem with x400