Soft water, central heating and Sentinel X200

[remu]

We've just had some work done on the house and we now have a water softener and soft water in the central heating system. I'm going to add Sentinel X100 to the system as this specifically says it will work with soft water.

I'm considering adding Sentinel X200 (boiler noise reduction by removal of lime scale) to the system, but Sentinel's website doesn't mention soft water in their product info. Does anybody know if -

(a) it's necessary to add X200 since, perhaps, the soft water will remove any lime scale?

(b) if X200 can be used with soft water?

 

[mickyg]

firstly you dont wanna be filling your system with softenened water unless you know your radiators and boiler will be ok with it. Secondly i dont know what your trying to achieve with the x200. Is there a specific problem with boiler/heating being affected by scale? if not dont worry about it.

 

[remu]

firstly you dont wanna be filling your system with softenened water unless you know your radiators and boiler will be ok with it. Secondly i dont know what your trying to achieve with the x200. Is there a specific problem with boiler/heating being affected by scale? if not dont worry about it.

Softened water - I'm hoping the X100 will deal with any corrosion problems the soft water might otherwise cause. Is that not the case?

X200 - lots of boiler noise so I'm hoping X200 will help with this, if it's down to scale (the heating system has been filled with hard water up to now).

Question - what do people in soft water areas do? Do they have boilers/radiators made specifically for soft water? Or do they add a "hardener"?

I'm a complete novice when it comes to central heating so please excuse me if my questions are a bit dumb!

 

[gas4you]

Artificially softened water will wreck your radiators and if you happen to have a boiler with an aluminium heat exchanger, this as well.

X200 is really just a 'noise reducer' additive.

Witha water softener, when filling a ch system, you should always set the isolating valve to bypass the softener, so you get normal hard water in t he system.

I assume they have fitted the water softener with the required 3 valves to enable you to do this?

 

[TicklyT]

Limescale from hard water is not usually a significant problem in a 'closed' system, such as a typical central heating system, sealed or open vented, where the same water is continually circulated and re-heated. Once the small amount of limescale from the initial fill has been deposited, the water should remain relatively clean.

Hard water only become a problem with an 'open' systems such as domestic water heating, where fresh water is heated each time, depositing a fresh layer of limescale at each cycle.

A small amount of limescale may even be beneficial to the longevity of the system, as soft or softened water usually tends to be more acidic.

 

[remu]

Artificially softened water will wreck your radiators and if you happen to have a boiler with an aluminium heat exchanger, this as well.

X200 is really just a 'noise reducer' additive.

With a water softener, when filling a ch system, you should always set the isolating valve to bypass the softener, so you get normal hard water in t he system.

I assume they have fitted the water softener with the required 3 valves to enable you to do this?

Yes, I have the three valve setup. What I don't know (yet) is where the header tank refills from. If it's the rising main, then I'll be OK once I've switched the softener out of circuit. If it's the big loft tank, then I guess I'll need to leave the softener out for a few days until the tank refills with hard water.

Just so I'm absolutely clear - adding X100 (yes, 100) to artificially softened water will not protect my radiators or heat exchanger (if aluminium,) from the corrosive effects of said water.

 

[gas4you]

You've got it in one

 

[remu]

Artificially softened water will wreck your radiators and if you happen to have a boiler with an aluminium heat exchanger, this as well.

X200 is really just a 'noise reducer' additive.

Witha water softener, when filling a ch system, you should always set the isolating valve to bypass the softener, so you get normal hard water in t he system.

I assume they have fitted the water softener with the required 3 valves to enable you to do this?

I set the valves for hard-water, drained the c.h. system down let it refill, drained it again, filled it again and drained it again! Hopefully that should have got rid of the bulk of the soft water. Then I refilled adding X100 as I did. I guess that's as safe as I'm going to get.

After adding the X100 I then added some X200 (boiler very noisy) - as I did so it foamed right up, just as if I'd tipped in a lot of washing up liquid. Is that normal? The foam's pretty much gone now (24 hours later), but I'm just curious as to what might have been causing it.

I'm leaving the system set to hard-water for a coupe of days as I'm still running round bleeding the air out of the radiators! Once they seem quiet (and hot) I'll put the softener back in line. I assume any small amount of top-up with soft water isn't going to do much damage?