Very dirty water when bleeding radiators.

cmberry20 · 26 Nov 2010

Just bled all my radiators in my house & all of them are chucking out very blackened/dark water. Most of them had little to no air them apart from the bathroom one which seemed to have enough air in it to fill a bouncy castle!!!!

Anyway, is this normal? Or should I drain the system out completely & refill it with again & add some Central Heating Inhibitor (1L)

btw, its a small 3 bedroom house with 9 radiators (4 downstairs), open system (with header tank in loft) & it was drain out 3 years ago when we had to move a radiator in the kitchen.
System is 15 years old.

Thanks in adavance!

Luda · 26 Nov 2010

You could drain it down and refill it but that would only rid the system of the loose/free debris floating through the system as apposed to any 'sludge' that may already be causing a reduced flow rate through your system.

A lot of people think that taking each radiator off individually and manually flusing it with a hosepipe is adequate but fact of the matter is this only cleans the rad, and not the system pipework so it wouldnt exactly cure the problem but theoretically it may improve it.

The best option is get the system flushed out but this can be an expensive task. If its not causing any problems atm, ie, if your radiators are adequately and evenly heating I'd be more inclined to have a filter fitted to the system and regularly clean it out. Filters are sold as a prevention, not a cure but ultimately with time it will slowly clear up the system. Not to the extent a flush would.

If you're happy with how the system is working atm I would just get a filter fitted but as mentioned above, make a point of regularly cleaning it out.

cmberry20 · 26 Nov 2010

Thanks for the tips.

The system seems to be fine - rads are heating up quickly & all of them get very hot.

Would add addtional treatments help remove sludge prior to drain.
eg: Sentinel X400 Central Heating Sludge Remover

seco services · 26 Nov 2010

cmberry20 said:
Thanks for the tips.

The system seems to be fine - rads are heating up quickly & all of them get very hot.

Would add addtional treatments help remove sludge prior to drain.
eg: Sentinel X400 Central Heating Sludge Remover

whats the condition of the water in the f/e tank.
sounds like your system has just never had any inhibitor in it so could do with just a chemical flush through as you say with x400, x800.

but powerflushing is over rated money making unless the system is fully sludged/suffering flow issues etc

bengasman · 26 Nov 2010

Yes, it is quite normal. No, it is not good. Indicates poor installation and neglected maintenance.
#1 reason for premature death of boiler.

cmberry20 · 26 Nov 2010

ok.

I've read from the reviews left by people that have purchased X400 that they have added to the header tank & left it in the system for about a week to work.

Is this ok?

Would it be ok to add both X400 & X800 together & leave for a week?

Hugh Jaleak · 26 Nov 2010

X400 can be left for up to 4 weeks. X800 is for power flush machines, I wouldnt leave it in the system for any length of time. X400 should do the job.

cmberry20 · 26 Nov 2010

Cool. Many thanks for the help guys.

seco services · 27 Nov 2010

cmberry20 said:
X400 that they have added to the header tank & left it in the system

hope you drained some water from the system first or the x400 just going to sit in the f/e.

cmberry20 · 27 Nov 2010

Will do, thanks for the heads up!

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Very dirty water when bleeding radiators.

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