dark black water in a new central heating system

I own a new house (less than 2 years old) with a condenser gas central heating system.

I have just had the radiators in the bathrooms replaced with heated towel rails. Upon draining the old radiators the plumber found the contents to be black and lumpy and very smelly.

He has advised a full pump clean out as this debris will destroy the boiler.

He also claimed that this problem is quite common on new houses as they don't flush the system properly at installation.

He has quoted £350 for the whole job and he is one of the few plumbers in our area that has the equipment to do the job properly.

It all seems pretty reasonable but am I being taken for ride here. The contents of the radiator were foul and I don't want the expense and hassle of bigger probelms down the line. I am amazed that such a new system should have such a large problem. I am entitled to complain to the builders?

The builders should have ensured the system was properly flushed and that inhibitor was added.

You should give them the opportunity to do the remedial work first and put a timescale of say 14 days after which you will engage your own heating engineer and look to claim the cost from the builder.

The price seems very reasonable to me but ensure he uses a good quality inhibitor made by Fernox or Sentinel.

Tony

dolomite said:

I own a new house (less than 2 years old) claimed that this problem is quite common on new houses as they don't flush the system properly at installation.



. I am amazed that such a new system should have such a large problem. I am entitled to complain to the builders?

Click to expand...

Only if you consider 2 years to be unreasonable.......I did my old dad`s house and 20 thats twenty years later there was no corrosion Funnily enough I`ve never done new build

Yes Nige, but 20 years ago they probably did cold and hot flushes after installing boilers, thus clearing the majority of flux and installation material out of the system.

Now, it is VERY uncommon in any new build or social housing projects for new systems to be properly flushed after installation or even commissioned properly. The reason behind this is that there is no comeback at all for operatives of large heating and building firms when their systems break down after a few years, so there is no incentive for them to do it right. By the time these systems break down they are usually off working for someone else! And their bosses expect them to do xxxxx (unreasonable) amount of installations in a week, so even if they wanted to do it right the couldn't!

Thanks for all of that. I think I can see both sides of the argument. All I know is what I saw come out of the radiators! I am no plumber and I don't expect drinking water to be in there either, however, the contents suggest that there is a problem with the original setup.

I will approach the builders and give them fair chance to respond to the issue. However I fully expect to have to shell out for this one out of my pocket.

At least I know I am not being taken for a ride!

Bear in mind that the 'black stuff' is iron oxide (magnetite) which has corroded off the inside of your radiators!

Get it flushed out and in these circumstances (heavy corrosion), I'd recommend fitting a Magnaclean filter near the boiler on the Return pipe. This will capture further large quantities of black sludge that will not be removed entirely by flushing. And don't forget to add inhibitor now, check the water condition annually and add more inhibitor every time the system is drained.

When I bought a new build, the builder ( Mc Alpines ) covered all faults for the first 2 years. Good job really we went through 2 PCB's on the boiler, after that I was on my own.