Central heating F&E pipe

[Turpin]

Hi,

I've just had my rads flushed and a blockage cleared from the cold feed pipe from the F&E tank. My god there was some oil coloured water in the downstairs rads, so thankfully that's gone now.

After satisfying myself that the CH / HW is working without leaks, I noticed that the feed pipe from the F&E tank is a little warm (not hot) all the way up until about 6" from the tank itself - is this normal? The water in the tank is cold.

Previously the pipe was only warm for about a foot up from where it met the system pipework itself.

Thanks.

 

[JohnD]

water will heat by convection up the pipe. Yours seems to be going further than usual. just insulate it well and check there is no flow into the tank once the system has come up to temp.

I hope you now have a corrosion inhibitor in the water?

 

[Turpin]

Thanks, yep, some Sentinel I believe.

If the water in the tank gets hot I assume that's a bad thing yeah ?

Sounds a lot quieter as well now Hopefully I wont be woken up at 6am by the sound whooshing water and air.

 

[JohnD]

yes, bad thing, there should be no flow in and out of the F&E except for expansion and contraction as it hots hot and cold. I hear this is only a pint or so,

 

[gas4you]

Water in F&E can also get warm without there being any fault present.

 

[Turpin]

Seems to be fine now, is warm till about 6ft up the feed pipe, then cools down gradually as it gets higher.

I noticed there was also a bit of a drip from the overflow, which has also stopped and level in tank is below the overflow (obviously !) now.

Thanks to all on this forum for the advice earlier about blockages (previous post), plumber made 2 cuts into the feed pipe and cleared some nasty gunk out, rads are now nice and warm, and I have one happy gf

Keeping my fingers crossed that the 'noises' are now also gone when it all kicks in from cold tomorrow morning... which was the reason I had the work done in the first place £200 for flushing 6 rads, clearing 2 blockages, swapping out some TRVS that stuck constantly and getting it all back and running again sound reasonable?

(He wanted £160 and the cost of the parts (£20) for 5 hours work, but I thought I'd bung him and his mate an extra xmas pressie as I called him Monday, and he was here 8:30am today).

 

[JohnD]

sounds very inexpensive

you might like to bale out a bit of water from the F&E and adjust the ball valve so the water level is only a couple of inches above the feed pipe hole in the side. that gives more room for expansion. the ball valve must not drip.

I hope you had some inhibitor in the water on final fill? if not you can easily add it yourself.