Central Heating taking two hours to warm up

[SJB060685]

And yet, some open vented systems like my own, almost 1/2 a century old have never given the slightest trouble, with some of the original rads, and only the odd drop of inhibitor thrown in.

All comes down to the installer, their understanding and the quality of the installation I suppose.
Once up and running most systems are pretty capable of looking after themselves but not always, there's a lot of variables to consider.

 

[John.g]

I reckon it helps a lot if its a combined vent and cold feed installed like mine right up at the F&E tank as there is no or little sludge up there.

 

[Smilin]

The images above suggest the pump is on the flow after vent and feed. The problem is most open vented systems are decades old and even if the orientation of vent fill and pump is correct from the start that is an awful long time for corrosion to occur. The management of system water quality and thorough expelling of air and dissolved gases is something that is really only been taken seriously in recent years.

I take it the upgrade to s-plan, the heating engineer wouldn't have changed the orientation or the pipework around the vent, feed, pump area? Just trying to get an idea of how long that pipework has been there. I think it has been replaced at some point as it no longer lines up with the pipe clips attached to the wall.

I may ask the plumber tomorrow to change it to a combined vent/feed arrangement.

 

[SJB060685]

No no changes would have been made.
You could ask the attending engineer to convert a combined feed and vent but if you have a blockage and it's where I suspect this would need to be cleared as well.

 

[exedon2]

I would seriously consider converting to sealed system lose header tank completely.

 

[Smilin]

After the boiler service, and a quick look in the loft, the magnaclean was in a state, and the header tank is not much better. Unfortunately the guy who services the boiler is booked up for 3 months now, so I'm having to find someone else.

 

[SJB060685]

Based on the above I recommend finding a decent engineer who could do a thorough powerflush and possibly redo the pipework as mentioned previously. A flush might be all that's needed.

 

[John.g]

After the boiler service, and a quick look in the loft, the magnaclean was in a state, and the header tank is not much better. Unfortunately the guy who services the boiler is booked up for 3 months now, so I'm having to find someone else.

Cut a bit off that vent pipe as well, it shouldn' be dipping in the water.