Sentinel sludge remover review for all who doubt

just thought i would post about my experience with sentinel x400 sludge remover.

i have an old CH system with a mix of 15mm and microbore which as im sure you know is not the best combination to have. i have had problems balancing the system since i moved in. finally i managed to balance the system and get the heat downstairs, however the noise in the upstairs rads due to lockshields being closed to the extent that they were, was very annoying. it was audible even with general hussle and bussle going on in the house.

i drained some water off the system 2 months ago and found it to be very black and full of silt after settling. i decided to buy sentinel x400 and add it to the system 4 weeks ago.
after 4 weeks of circulation daily, i drained the system down and refilled, adding inhibitor. Since doing this i am able to open every single lock shield valve upstairs to max, and still the downstairs rads get HOT! this was not possible before. there is no noise at all now, and i have lowered pump speed to 2.

i doubt this is coincidence, i really believe that sentinel sludge remover is beneficial! it worked for me.

thought i would share this with you in case some of you are dubious as to the effect of sentinel and fernox stuff.

Try fitting a system filter of some description too. Will help remove any muck still floating around and prevent further problems.

Magnaclean or spirovent are the 2 most popular

I was also very happy with it. My old mum has a very old and neglected system, water very black. I gave it a couple of plain-water drains and refills to get the loose stuff out, and fitted a Magnaclean, after a few weeks that had stopped collecting any more sludge so I added X400, and got pints more sludge out. So I see no doubt that it does what it's supposed to.

I agree about a filter, a Magnaclean will cost you about £100 and I guarantee you will be amazed and delighted to see how much sludge it traps, and it continues working permanantly. It is not a difficult DIY plumbing job to fit.

BTW you mention having all the upstairs lockshields fully open, this is not the best way to balance the system.

JohnD said:

BTW you mention having all the upstairs lockshields fully open, this is not the best way to balance the system.

Click to expand...

The rads may be hot, but they certainly won't be balanced

How to balance a CH system

i know they are not balanced, but i have noise problems when the system is balanced as such...due to the miss match of piping. when i balanced the system using thermometers to get around a 8-10 degree difference in flow and return, the system upstairs became very noisy, as to get the heat downstairs with the microbore, the upstairs lockshields had to be almost closed , this made a loud whistling noise upstairs. my original problem was the D/S rads were only just getting luke warm not hot.

i have 15mm U/S and 8mm D/S, there is no balancing valve or zone valve between the 2 floors, the microbore just tees off the 22mm main in between the bathroom and bedroom1 rads!! so getting water there before sentinel was an issue!

what will occur due to having the LSV all open upstairs? i assumed that if all the rads heat up then thats ok?

Is the feed from the 22mm to the microbore manifolds in 22mm?

If it is, you should not have any problems balancing the system. Do the rads on microbore all together as the "second" rad; i.e after the bathroom or bed 1 (whichever comes first). It's important that all LS valves are closed when you start balancing (step 9 of instructions).