Advice needed to power flush a home

[ey143]

What is that gold thing on the central heating return if it’s not a magnetic filter?

Because my home emergency policy won’t cover the replacement of the plate heat exchanger (which is now clogged) until I do a power flush, I still need to get this done asap.

not sure how me trying to do a manual clean of the system is going to be anywhere near effective as the machines and chemicals used by the professionals.

Anyone have an idea on cost pls?

 

[JohnD]

What is that gold thing on the central heating return if it’s not a magnetic filter?

Original Spirovent had a vortex trap, and particles were supposed to fall to the bottom of the vessel where they could periodically be drained out.

When magnets became fashionable, an exterior magnetic jacket was added to the old design, and the renamed it a Spirotrap

the one in the pic looks like the old design, and I see no magnetic jacket on it.

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I found it would trap particles of scale or grit, but not sludge.

 

[JohnD]

visualisation of how a spirotrap catches particles.

 

[mcprinter]

DIYer

Probably £500-£600 for a Power Flush. Maybe a bit more in London. 1-2 Days.


I did a Chemical Flush myself including removing all Rads and Flushing out in the Garden.
£30 for Chemicals. Lots of my Time.

Fitted the Magnaclean Pro 2 recommended in this Thread. About £100 (Part Only) and very good at catching Sludge.
I believe Boiler Manufacturers advise (insist?) on a Magnetic Filter being fitted.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Yes there are risks with a powerflush on an older system due to the high pressure and abrupt pressure changes.
Question- did your builders isolate the boiler from the heating system before draining the system? (I've always assumed that was one reason for fitting iso valves at the boiler)?
Question 2- does your home emergency cover refund the cost of the powerflush or are you left holding that baby? (Hex replacement likely cheaper than a powerflush, since your blockage has been caused by loose radiator crud rather than hard ferrite deposits a good wash through to remove the crud will probably be sufficient)

 

[Dereekoo]

Makes you laugh, of all the foregoing replies there's only one that is anywhere near answering you original query??

 

[JohnD]

original query??

Didn't mention the blockage

 

[Mottie]

Makes you laugh, of all the foregoing replies there's only one that is anywhere near answering you original query??

Your post was no help either..........neither was mine.....

 

[HERTS P&D]

Makes you laugh, of all the foregoing replies there's only one that is anywhere near answering you original query??

Was it mine?



Andy

 

[ey143]

Yes there are risks with a powerflush on an older system due to the high pressure and abrupt pressure changes.
Question- did your builders isolate the boiler from the heating system before draining the system? (I've always assumed that was one reason for fitting iso valves at the boiler)?
Question 2- does your home emergency cover refund the cost of the powerflush or are you left holding that baby? (Hex replacement likely cheaper than a powerflush, since your blockage has been caused by loose radiator crud rather than hard ferrite deposits a good wash through to remove the crud will probably be sufficient)

What's a hex replacement?

 

[ey143]

As a first step, I'd suggesting getting a magnetic filter fitted, and giving it a chemical clean. if you are at all handy you can do the clean yourself for trivial cost. The chemical will loosen sludge so it can be captured.

this will at least catch remaining particles roaming around in the pipes and causing new blockages, and will remove at least some of the existing sludge and sediment.

It will need doing anyway, even if you have a powerflush later.

I think you will be amazed and delighted when you see how much sludge gets trapped in the filter, when you empty it out.

edit
Oh, I see you have a Spirovent. I have one, and it is not as good at trapping black sludge as a Magnaclean. Opinions will differ about this. Though it is a more solid piece of engineering. Not all of them have a magnet. I think yours hasn't.

**** FINAL UPDATE ****

So I finally got it sorted after 2 weeks of no hot water and intermittent heating.

Had a power flush done at a cost of £470 for 13 radiators / towel rails. Each rad flushed individually whilst all the others were closed off (and the whole system rebalanced at the end obviously) with whatever chemical cleaner was used (Spirotech brand) and then the whole thing filled with 1.5 litres of Spiroplus corrosion inhibitor (half a litre left with me to top after we we have a new towel radiator fitted in a new weeks). He told me not to use F1 from Ferox as its cancerous.....not sure if I believe that otherwise they wouldnt be selling it, so will return to amazon whatever unused bottles I purchased.

He was a member of the powerflush association. Husband and wife team. Seems like many foreigners are getting in on this game as its good money for them. Used some big brand machine to power flush the system together with his own own pipe device system made up with valves on there to reverse the flow of mains water pressure into and out of the system and boiler which he isolated throughout until the very end when he flushed the boiler heat exchanger and plate heat exchanger.

After a lot of water consumed in the flushing and some 7 hours at the property, we now have a boiler operating properly without any error codes and water and heating very hot. He used a FLIR thermal camera to check all the radiators whilst balancing the system and installed an Aladdin auto vent valve for free on the highest radiator in the house (which is also the coldest double radiator in my loft room).

I paid an extra £150 for the supply and fit of a Magnaclear Professional 2 magnetic filter to the central heating return valve and replace that gold piece of **it which I thought was doing something but no, as others have said, it's not a magnetic filter. I'm annoyed that my gas safe engineer who fitted my expensive 34kw boiler only in 2018 fitted this spirotrap. My powerflush guy said they stopped making them in 2012 and are probably cheap cost that's way it was fitted. Cant believe for an extra £30 or whatever he could have installed something proper at the time.

Anyway, will be more cautious going forward about cleaning the filter regularly myself and now topping up the inhibitor once a year through the magnaclean filter.

 

[Madrab]

Great it's sorted now and sounds like the job's a guddun.

In the previous installers defense though the earlier Spirotec MB2's were magnetic, the magnet was internal found at the bottom of the filter. Its design was such though that it didn't draw and hold magnetic particles out of the flow on a central core like the modern filters, rather the filter allowed the particles to drop out of the flow and were then held at the lower part of the filter by the magnet. Some say they weren't as effective as the modern ones though I must admit I found them to be very good.

The newer MB3's are superb IMO.

 

[Keithmac]

Looks like they did a thorough job and worth the money!. Bet their equipment wasn't cheap.

I keep meaning to have a Magnetic filter fitted to ours, might get ours done at next service.

 

[dilalio]

In June of this year, Part L of the building regs are changing.
Top of the agenda are magnetic filters to be fitted on all new boiler installs and condition of circulating medium (ie system water) to be tested, treated and maintained.
In striving to get every last bit of energy out of the fuel burnt, the system water quality is very important and until now has been broadly neglected, even if regulated.

For those of you planning complete new systems, including new radiators, be prepared to expect rads twice the size of those you currently have as we now have to target flow temps of <55° vs 70°.
Micro and mini bore pipework will likely need replacing with larger bore too.

Ironically, heat pumps will require less of an increase in rad sizes, due to the narrower deltaT, under which they operate.

 

[ianmcd]

Great it's sorted now and sounds like the job's a guddun.

In the previous installers defense though the earlier Spirotec MB2's were magnetic, the magnet was internal found at the bottom of the filter. Its design was such though that it didn't draw and hold magnetic particles out of the flow on a central core like the modern filters, rather the filter allowed the particles to drop out of the flow and were then held at the lower part of the filter by the magnet. Some say they weren't as effective as the modern ones though I must admit I found them to be very good.

The newer MB3's are superb IMO.

I have only ever installed one Spirotec, was a complete repipe on a large house, I service the boiler every year, about 8 years old now, and I always flush the Spirovent, have yet to see a speck of anything coming out of it , so either we cleaned the install properly, which we did as we had an empty for two weeks and there was plenty of coin on the job, or the Spirovent is just a bluff, have to say all copper , no plastic anywhere, origional system was Truwell and Bg quoted over £7K more than we did and we didnt want the job so way over priced it but still got it