What's the worst case if I leave Sludge Remover in permanently ?

[AmritPedersen]

wow, cheers for that. an interesting read for sure.

thinking of draining in the next couple of days.

some more questions!

1. to do a flush is it best to drain down and refill (which before has settled sludge in pipes and blocked them), or do what i did before and drain from the bottom rad but with the expansion tank still adding water, until it runs clear from the bottom rad, then stop draining, run heating to stir it all up, then run drain hose again until clear. repeat until it runs clear almost straight away. also means u get no airlocks.

2. not suggesting i will, but what would happen if u put normal household descaler in your system?

What I do is to flus thru with mains water first (if its easy) otherwise drain down fully. Refill with clean water & add sludge remover. After reading Flyboy, I'm going to keep doing that as I always thought that this will get rid of the easy stuff & allow the expensive chemical to work on the tougher stuff.

Power flush (I'm planning to get the MagnaClean powerflush thing when cash flow allows). While its flushing, wollop the rads with trusty rubber mallet to dislodge the crud.

Drain, refill, flush thru with mains water thru each rad individually.

Refill & add inhibitor.

 

[AmritPedersen]

Right. I've drained the system, flushed through, filled and drained again, then filled, bled and added No Nonsense inhibitor as it's buildcert approved and only £8.

My worry is that when i was draining and filling i was getting lumps of oxide coming out from the Fernox filter (after initial emptying) and from where i was draining, which means there's prob more in there and why didn't the sludge remover (over 3 weeks) and the inhibitor (over 6 months) break this down?

Its taken years to build up, do you really thing that some chemicals will get rid of it that easily? That's why these magnetic filters are so great IMO. They'll keep picking out that sludge long after you've forgotten to check

 

[AmritPedersen]

btw I really enjoyed this post & learnt something. Pretty hard considering I'm on my 3rd whiskey

 

[Rick the Spud]

cheers, this is what i did last week, or a combination of things anyway. Flush, drain down, flush, refil, circulate, flush, drain down, flush, refil, bleed, add inhibitor.

my only hope is that the new inhibitor will carry on breaking down the oxide. is it worth adding another one for £8, it says you can't overdose on the stuff?

 

[Rick the Spud]

Confused.com!

Now i've drained, flushed and refilled with No-nonsense inhibitor, the Fernox TF1 filter seems to be catching oxide again after hardly catching any for months. My worry is that the Tradesave inhibitor and consequently sludge remover that was used didn't do it's job, if anything at all, and the No-nonsense stuff which IS buildcert approved is starting to breakdown the sludge. Everything is still working fine though and the water is still clear, so my questions are:

1. Shall i just let it circulate doing it's job and it will eventually break down the sludge and scale, of which the oxide will be caught in the filter?
2. Shall i flush through again with a better sludge remover meaning more effort and draining/flushing?
3. Has what i've done overall achieved similar results to what i would have expected from a powerflush, but cheaper and without the risk of sludging the bottom pipes of a microbore system?

 

[kay-jay]

If your tf1 is removing crap and all your rads are hot then leave the inhibitor in. If you still have cold spots and sludge in the system you need to drain and add a Decent sludge remover as your inhibitor won't do this. It simply prevents further corrosion

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[fuzzy]

i was told if you leave it in too long it clings together and blocks pipe. a fellow plumbing left it in too long and ended up having to cut pipes out

 

[kay-jay]

I may be wrong fuzzy buy i think he's removed the cleaner and now has inhibitor in his system

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[Rick the Spud]

yeah, only inhibitor in at the moment.

all rads are hot, what are cold spots?

don't think there is sludge in the system, flushed through until clear, and still clear, but the TF1 is collecting crap so it must be from somewhere.

If inhibitor has the power to stop sludge, surely it has the power to break down sludge and oxide lumps over time?

 

[kay-jay]

No. Inhibitor prevents future corrosion. Cold spots are areas on a radiator that don't get hot because of sludge and magnetite blockages. To breAk down corrosion and sludge in a system you need a system cleaner which you have used previously and seems to have worked. Just leave the inhibitor and the inhibitor tf1 to do their job

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[FD Powerflow]

No. Inhibitor prevents future corrosion. Cold spots are areas on a radiator that don't get hot because of sludge and magnetite blockages. To breAk down corrosion and sludge in a system you need a system cleaner which you have used previously and seems to have worked. Just leave the inhibitor and the inhibitor tf1 to do their job

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

Good inhibitor's ie. Fernox and Sentinel have a small amount of cleaner to prepare the metal surface for passivation (the process of inhibitor minerals coating the metal surface) this means that even if a cleaner has been circulated you will still have a small amount of debris brought into solution over time, hence why in my opinion TF1's and Magnacleans should be mandatory!

 

[Rick the Spud]

Hi all

Heating still up and running and going strong, but i've got a couple more Q's...

1. There seems to be a 'droney' hum coming from the pipes in the downstairs ceiling. Everything seems to be bled so don't think it's air, any suggestions?
2. What speed should the pump be on? BG fitted it and put it on 3, i've set it to 2 so it wasn't quite so loud and used less power. Seems to be fine. Wondered if it should be higher as it's microbore and therefore more resistance?
3. Without any special thermometer tools is there a rough way to balance the rads?

cheers

 

[RoryD]

Rick, why didn't you just take the original advice? After BG advised you why do you say you "weren't sure because you didn't see it yourself?" If you doubt anyones integrity or honesty, leave BG and go somewhere else. You are not a heating engineer and you'll have what you deserve for meddling. If you don't want BG get an independent professsional in.

 

[Rick the Spud]

cheers RoryD, but what original advise? no-one has ever mentioned getting a pro in, and so far i've done it all myself and everything is fine except from a 'humming' pipe, saving me £1,200. I don't have a quarter of that hence why i'm doing it myself.

anyone else got any suggestions on humming pipes and pump speed?

 

[flyboy]

The higher the pump speed the more heat can be passed round the system. Put it on the lowest setting and if its warm enough leave it there. If it cannot cope on a cold day (freezing point outside) then you need to increase the pump speed.

 

[Rick the Spud]

cheers.

oddly just noticed that on 3 it's a lot quieter!

 

[RoryD]

Well, If you were all about, you wouldn't be in here asking the professionals for hard earned and well studied for advice. Why am I a little unhappy? well sound advice was given but you actually doubted it and have opted for a short term fix mate. Sludge and scale just doesn't go because you add gear and drain off. It'll get straight back to work when you're up and running

 

[Rick the Spud]

Sorry RoryD, not sure what you're on about mate. Not sure what this advice is that i've been given and not taken, apart from what the BG man said, all of which i've done, apart from doing the powerflush which i have been told to do and not do in equal measure. I also wasn't going to spend £1200 on doing so.
BG said i needed a magnaclean - i fitted a TF1 because i was told they were and seem to be better.
BG said i needed a system flush - which i've done.
BG said i needed a powerflush, and in order to do one i needed to change all the twin entry valves to single valves on each end of the rad and extra pipe work in between. - because i was also advised the powerflush may make things leak and a system flush with good cleaners would do the job just as well, thats what i did, also negating the need for more pipe work and new valves. powerflush is not a cure all problems, and what did people do before powerflush came along? what i've done?

I didn't come on here asking for a step by step guide on how to do everything the BG guy said needed doing, i came on here asking for a few pointers which i've been given, and advice on what was said to me by BG, which according to the helpful guys on here, seemed to be a standard expensive response to every job BG goes to.

And what is the short term fix i seem to have opted for? nothing has been bodged or short cutted, i've spent a lot of time and effort on it and my system now has clean water going round it instead of 'black coffee with bits in'!

I'm just left with a humming pipe, which was humming before, and a query on pump speeds. is that ok?

 

[RoryD]

Rick the spud: Are you missing a 'P' in there somewhere?? Already told you why! All of us in this industry are a little bit fed up with customers "not being sure" or doubting. Rogue traders do a good job, but the vast majority of heating engineers have earned their spurs so don't like to hear such "doubts". Are you ok with that?

 

[Rick the Spud]

who are you talking about? which heating engineer have i expressed my doubts to and have supposedly upset?
The BG bloke quoted for the job to my wife and i never even met him, then or since, and everyone's advice on here i have thanked and adhered to.

confused.com?