radiator issues, not heating equally

[simond]

If I read your post correctly;

- you've recently had the boiler moved to another part of the house
- no powerflush or magnacleaning was carried out
- immediately since this work was carried out the rads have been warm at the top and cold at the bottom
- you have been since messing around with cleaning chemicals
- you used reputable tradesmen but haven't asked them why you only now have a problem after the work was completed

Rads cease to get hot all over due to poor water flow rate through them. Since the rads are the same ones you started out with, you must ask yourself what has changed. And the answer is, the pipework that linked them to the boiler.

Depending on how the boiler was reconnected into the existing heating system - there are two ways usually; the difficult way and the easy way - will affect how much pipe resistance has been introduced into the circuit. Too great a pipe resistance = lower flow. Lower flow rate means lukewarm rads not hot all over.

Finally, unlike some others here, I don't rate the chemical solution much. Chucking them into a system is like soaking your dirty kaks in a warm bowl of water overnight. No substitute for a washing machine.

In our industry we use Powerflush machines (akin to a washing machine and a similar size) and magnetic filters to do this work, and we run the substantial Powerflush unit's pump through just one rad (eg: shut all the others off) at a time, whilst we agitate that radiator with a vibro tool.

The magnets pick up the debris before it gets to the boiler, which considering it is haring along at 1.5metres per second, is not long. The worst thing you can do is stir up a load of debris, and then pass it through a combi, which is full of small apertures and plate heat exchangers with tiny gaps inside for stuff to get stuck and cause aggro for the rest of the boiler's lifespan.

Just as well you used reputable people, I'm sure they haven't done any of the above.

 

[FNG]

hi,

I am not saying there were no issues before

Yes, the boiler was moved from the bathroom to the kitchen and 2 radiators replaced/moved too.

I have seen the plumbing for the new stuff, it's 22mm soldered copper pipe and beautifully done but connected to a series of poorly done previous work on a selection of 22mm/15mm copper and 15mm plastic. We did not ask for the entire house to be re plumbed as we were paying for 2 rooms to be renovated (the limit of our budget) so the heating engineer did what he had to/could into the existing network.

The heating system is what can only be described as a Dr Seuss esk.
The ground floor and first floor are on 22mm core pipes but with 15mm copper feeding into the radiators. This foundation fitting is probably at least 30 years old with radiators to match.
1 of the first floor rooms is fed off the main network using 15mm plastic with the loft also on the same 15mm plastic

I appreciate that short of a complete re-plumb a power flush followed by a professionally fitted filter is the best option but at £300 to £600 it is currently not an option

I could stretch to a £100 good filter if I then fit it myself, hence the questions.

TIA

 

[Agile]

You don't seem to have told us how long you left the X400 in your system for?

Tony

 

[FNG]

about 4 weeks give or take a weekend or two

 

[dominoman]

Ideally you would fit it to the return pipe, near the boiler, so it picks up the muck before it enters the heat exchanger. But in reality fitting it anywhere at all will still pick up most small circulating iron fragments and magnetite.

The main thing is to put it somewhere that is easy to access, so I'd go for the exposed pipes, not under the floor.

I emptied mine every month to start with, and now that has gone down to every 3-4 months. It is amazing what it traps.

As for fitting it using Speedfit, I don't know. I'll let someone more knowledgable on plumbing answer that part.