Gentlemen, I'd like to raise a virtual glass to you who are so helpful to so many people posting here.
I've posted a couple of times about my old and ailing central heating system (Y plan - open vented / Potterton Profile Netaheat 50e and about 10 radiators plus DHW cylinder) which has been giving me grief, usually at the most inopportune moments. My problem was that there was poor circulation - many rads downstairs took an age to get hot, if at all, and the boiler would only run for a couple of minutes (from cold) before going off for some time. Oddly there wasn't any kettling or pumping over.
I've 'lurked' here for a long while picking up useful hints from you all, and this has culminated in the following actions which together have resulted in a system which is working better than it has ever done in the 10 years I've lived in this house, viz:
Removed and inverted all of the rads one by one and flushed them through outside using a pressure washer. The pump also got the same treatment as it was a fairly recent replacement. The header tank was cleaned out whilst empty.
Added a further radiator drain point in a convenient place to allow draining and, more importantly - bottom to top refilling under (gentle) mains pressure. This works very well, previously I've had continual nightmares with airlocks.
Cut out and replaced 22 & 15mm pipework in the loft which was affected by magnetite deposits, including the 1988 vintage Aerjec air seperator (the main cause of my problems) - OK, so I cheated and used yorkshire fittings as opposed to the cheaper end fed variety (much to the amusement of the man at my local City Plumbing outlet) but I'm more used to soldering electronic components in my day job and wanted to make sure that everything sealed ok first time ! Amazingly I only had one small weeping joint on the boiler buddy's gate valve.
Fitted a boiler buddy on the return feed to the boiler, and I'm now running with a bottle of Fernox cleaner for a couple of weeks before draining and flushing through again in preparation for the inhibitor to be added. The boiler buddy is trapping loads of junk so far. I've refilled and drained the system a couple of times until the water coming out was nice and clean.
After all this the boiler now runs properly with the pump set on 2 and all of the rads are nice and toasty within 10 - 15 minutes. I've not even balanced the rads yet. More importantly she who must be obeyed is warm and happy and my brownie point bank is well in credit
Hopefully it will make a difference to my gas consumption too - I've just had my annual payments review from EDF
Once again Kudos to you guys !
Regards
Robin
I've posted a couple of times about my old and ailing central heating system (Y plan - open vented / Potterton Profile Netaheat 50e and about 10 radiators plus DHW cylinder) which has been giving me grief, usually at the most inopportune moments. My problem was that there was poor circulation - many rads downstairs took an age to get hot, if at all, and the boiler would only run for a couple of minutes (from cold) before going off for some time. Oddly there wasn't any kettling or pumping over.
I've 'lurked' here for a long while picking up useful hints from you all, and this has culminated in the following actions which together have resulted in a system which is working better than it has ever done in the 10 years I've lived in this house, viz:
Removed and inverted all of the rads one by one and flushed them through outside using a pressure washer. The pump also got the same treatment as it was a fairly recent replacement. The header tank was cleaned out whilst empty.
Added a further radiator drain point in a convenient place to allow draining and, more importantly - bottom to top refilling under (gentle) mains pressure. This works very well, previously I've had continual nightmares with airlocks.
Cut out and replaced 22 & 15mm pipework in the loft which was affected by magnetite deposits, including the 1988 vintage Aerjec air seperator (the main cause of my problems) - OK, so I cheated and used yorkshire fittings as opposed to the cheaper end fed variety (much to the amusement of the man at my local City Plumbing outlet) but I'm more used to soldering electronic components in my day job and wanted to make sure that everything sealed ok first time ! Amazingly I only had one small weeping joint on the boiler buddy's gate valve.
Fitted a boiler buddy on the return feed to the boiler, and I'm now running with a bottle of Fernox cleaner for a couple of weeks before draining and flushing through again in preparation for the inhibitor to be added. The boiler buddy is trapping loads of junk so far. I've refilled and drained the system a couple of times until the water coming out was nice and clean.
After all this the boiler now runs properly with the pump set on 2 and all of the rads are nice and toasty within 10 - 15 minutes. I've not even balanced the rads yet. More importantly she who must be obeyed is warm and happy and my brownie point bank is well in credit
Hopefully it will make a difference to my gas consumption too - I've just had my annual payments review from EDF
Once again Kudos to you guys !
Regards
Robin
