Does this sound like sludge?

[montechristo]

here is the situation.

I live in a bungalow

fully pressurized system.

there are 14 Rads, 3 of which are towel rail rads

each room is on a separate zone, with it's own thermostat/timer

each zone is a separate drop of pipe from the main loop that runs through the loft.

After months of procastrinating BG have finally fixed my boiler by replacing a leaky heat exchanger. (Glowworm 30SXI)

this has fixed intermittent cutout and constantly dropping water pressure. The boiler now runs like a charm (touchwood)

My system is 3 years old and up until the boiler problems ran without a hitch for over 2 years.

My current problem is that my radiators are playing silly buggers,

some get hot and some don't (this can even be within the same zone) sometimes they are very very hot and sometimes lukewarm, there is no consistency basically take your pick as to which get warm on a given day.

What is consistent (most of the time) is that rads that don't get warm have their feed pipes roasting hot, and rads that get warmish are hot at the top and stone cold at the bottom. My hall Rad never gets warm, ever!

To my mind that sounds like sludge. BG are arguing not, as there shouldn't be a sludge build up in a 3 year old system. (BG didn't fit it by the way)

however my thinking is that

a) symptoms sound like sludge (radiators cold at the bottom)
b) I was topping the water up so often while they were attempting to fix the boiler (at least 4 months of at least once a day) that any inhibitor in the system has probably been diluted to the point of ineffectiveness.


So firstly do you think I'm right?


secondly if I get BG to do a powerflush (yes I know they are overpriced, but they then guarantee against blockages for life) should this solve the problem?

thirdly how long should a proper powerflush take? 14 rads and pipework sounds like an all day job to me. However my no-nothing BG engineer seems to think half a day sufficient?

all advice gratefully received as this is seriously winding me up now.

 

[Agile]

If you were regularly topping it up for four months then sludge is quite likely to be the cause.

If you can reasonable prove that BG did not attend to the leaking within a reasonable time scale ( seven days ? ) then I would suggest that they should power flush it at no extra cost!

The best way for you to determine the cause of the problem is for you to choose a rad showing the symptom which is not too heavy and disconnect it yourself and see if there is sludge inside. Use a long rod to poke inside and see if it comes out all black. Keep the evidence to show BG and ideally keep the rad off the wall.

Tony

 

[Nige F]

Maybe check the motorised valves that control each drop......override manually and see if the rads start warming.

 

[Paul Barker]

I couldn't be conficent I'd cleaned out a 14 rad system in half a day. Maybe I overdo it. Takes all day at least for two of us going like the clappers do do system justice. If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well.

Last customer I came across with a BG quote for powerflushing it was £750, and they weren't going to do it as part of a boiler change unless the customer payed that extra amount.

I got the job obviously, 'casue I changed her boiler gave her 4 new rads replaced her dodgy trv's added some gave her modulating time and temp control, came in under the BG price by nearly a thousand on what they were going to charge for just the boiler, no powerflush no rads no better controls. I made a few hundred more than I usually go for aswell.

Somehow they find enough vulnerable people who don't have the ability to find out what's going on in the heating world so as to take their bait. Their vans are always busy round here. I've saved more than a few people from an over expensive boiler swap when they just needed a vent!

 

[Nige F]

BG are the enemy .....they sound so comforting and solid .multi million £backing and advertising...and I bet their bosses love every "rogue trader" programme.. not to mention the shareholders