M
Mazzy
Hi There
I am hoping some of you may be able to help me with a Central Heating issue that has been on going since moving into our first home 18 months ago.
I am not sure how much detail to go into so here goes...
Basically 2 of our downstairs radiators don't get as hot as upstairs even after balancing ( 3 story house, circulator pump on 3). We have also had problems with the boiler locking out.
A service engineer came out and suggested the system was sludged, so advised draining the system and putting in a cleaner for 2 weeks.
We did this (water slightly grey) and even before the cleaner had a chance to do anything the radiators upstairs were red hot and downstairs was a little better.
When refilling the system a small spurt of water came out of the vent pipe! Strange!?
A month on and we seem to be back to square one.
We have now been recommended to have a magnacleanse flush done (full powerflush might put the system under too much turmoil - parts of it are quite old). Have a magnaclean fitted, a gate valve put on the HW tank to restrict the flow (this hogs all the heat when both CH and HW are on together) and also seal the system.
After doing further investigation myself (due to getting so bogged down in so many different options and not knowing what to do for the best) I have discovered that when either the CH or HW are started the pump sucks air into the vent pipe when it first starts. Then when it turns off at the end of the programmed time it spurts out maybe half an egg cup of water.
The header tank water is slightly rust coloured with loads of weird jelly looking stuff.
I have assessed the pipework and based on other threads I think our pipework is kind of ok - but not perfect.
The flow from the boiler has the vent, then cold feed, then the pump. The vent is directly upward on the flow pipe from the boiler and takes a sharp right hand bend and curves up into the roof eaves (this finishes just over the lip of the header tank - with out a 45cm loop) Just before the vent pipe the flow tees off horizontally and then tees again up to the cold feed and down to the pump. Other than the incorrect vent pipe height over the header tank the only slight issue I can see is that the vent and feed pipes are actually 250mm apart, rather than the recommended 150mm.
Could this be the cause of the suction and pump over?
Would fixing this and the vent pipe over the header tank fix the sludge issue?
Is sealing the CH system too drastic? and would our old pipe work deal with the excess pressure?
Any advice would be most welcome as we are new to all this.
Thanks Maz
I am hoping some of you may be able to help me with a Central Heating issue that has been on going since moving into our first home 18 months ago.
I am not sure how much detail to go into so here goes...
Basically 2 of our downstairs radiators don't get as hot as upstairs even after balancing ( 3 story house, circulator pump on 3). We have also had problems with the boiler locking out.
A service engineer came out and suggested the system was sludged, so advised draining the system and putting in a cleaner for 2 weeks.
We did this (water slightly grey) and even before the cleaner had a chance to do anything the radiators upstairs were red hot and downstairs was a little better.
When refilling the system a small spurt of water came out of the vent pipe! Strange!?
A month on and we seem to be back to square one.
We have now been recommended to have a magnacleanse flush done (full powerflush might put the system under too much turmoil - parts of it are quite old). Have a magnaclean fitted, a gate valve put on the HW tank to restrict the flow (this hogs all the heat when both CH and HW are on together) and also seal the system.
After doing further investigation myself (due to getting so bogged down in so many different options and not knowing what to do for the best) I have discovered that when either the CH or HW are started the pump sucks air into the vent pipe when it first starts. Then when it turns off at the end of the programmed time it spurts out maybe half an egg cup of water.
The header tank water is slightly rust coloured with loads of weird jelly looking stuff.
I have assessed the pipework and based on other threads I think our pipework is kind of ok - but not perfect.
The flow from the boiler has the vent, then cold feed, then the pump. The vent is directly upward on the flow pipe from the boiler and takes a sharp right hand bend and curves up into the roof eaves (this finishes just over the lip of the header tank - with out a 45cm loop) Just before the vent pipe the flow tees off horizontally and then tees again up to the cold feed and down to the pump. Other than the incorrect vent pipe height over the header tank the only slight issue I can see is that the vent and feed pipes are actually 250mm apart, rather than the recommended 150mm.
Could this be the cause of the suction and pump over?
Would fixing this and the vent pipe over the header tank fix the sludge issue?
Is sealing the CH system too drastic? and would our old pipe work deal with the excess pressure?
Any advice would be most welcome as we are new to all this.
Thanks Maz