Stubborn blockage won't budge

[Viper Gas]

Hello All

I was called out to a property to clean a fully pumped open vented s plan heated system.

After the clean I found that one or two of the rads upstairs woukd not heat up. One rad in particular had heat coming to it on the feed but the return was competely blocked.

We flushed the system from the boiker flow and return. We flushed from the rad in question and we flushed from two other alternative time locations.

Basically we found loads of large rush particles in the system but still we could not clear the blockage in the return on the upstairs circuits. The upstairs circuit was also 15mm.

Can anyone recommend any alternative methods for cleaning pipes from these crunchy and crispy iron oxide deposits.

We flushed with chemicals. With boiler on to 45degress. Took rads off wall too and fluahed through in garden. And even ran mains pressure water into the rerun to try and budge the block. No luck.

Any further suggestions?

Cheers
VP

 

[Best]

Cut out pipes at tees going to rads that are not working and replace?
If you can get below floors?

 

[Viper Gas]

That's not an option. House is well lived in. Hardly any floor space to be seen.

 

[Riley]

Can you go up? Depends how much they want the rad to work I suppose

 

[Chuck]

From your description, I suspect that the system either didn't have any inhibitor or had a leak, either in the system or a faulty float valve, that meant fresh water was entering via the FE tank.

Anyway, in my experience, it's possible for a length of pipe to become almost filled solid with sludge. Attempting to flush the system is the coup de grâce that finally blocks the pipe at which point you are out of luck. Don't bother trying to flush the pipe it will be blocked solid. Just cut it out the blocked section and replace it.

You can usually confirm such a blockage with a strong magnet.

 

[Viper Gas]

Thanks very much. I'm hearing pretty much what I thought. Was hoping some one here might have had a very small ferret that could have run along inside the pipes and cleared the blockage. Oh well, I'll keep an eye out at the next expo. Lol

Thank you for your responses.

 

[Rob Foster]

Thanks very much. I'm hearing pretty much what I thought. Was hoping some one here might have had a very small ferret that could have run along inside the pipes and cleared the blockage. Oh well, I'll keep an eye out at the next expo. Lol

Thank you for your responses.

A strong magnet moved along the pipework assisted by vibration can breakdown sludge, but you have to consider where the grunge ends up . Cenralheatking

 

[gmartine]

I don't have a small ferret , but a strong neodymium (N52) magnet might, might break up the ferrite slug if you could get access. I bought one from China (fleabay) for about a tenner and it pulls the braces out of my daughters mouth and stops my water meter at the same time.