Hi,
The house we bought a few months ago has a boiler which was installed in around 2000/2001 and radiators which (I guess) date from when the house was built in the early 60s. It is a standard open vent system.
My first concern is that the system may not currently have enough inhibitor in it.
In early December I had to drain the system down to replace a leaky valve. When I refilled it, I added a standard bottle (5 litres??) or Fernox MB1. However, I am a bit concerned that they may not have been enough.
If you count each double panel one as being two radiators, then we have 25 rads in total. Should I have used more than one container of MB1 and, if so, will it have made much odds given that we are only talking about a period of about 3 months?
If it makes any difference the heating system uses water that comes off the softener. I have seen some posts on here that say that is a bad thing, but the people who service the softener assure me it is ok.
The boiler was serviced in Feb and the system is basically ok. Just a couple of niggles:
1. A couple of rads are noticeably colder at the bottom than the top
2. The guy who serviced the boiler turned the control on it up from where I had it originally at around 33% up to about 75%. Since then I have noticed what I guess is a very slight kettling effect - i.e. a pretty quiet whooshing type noise from the boiler plus the occasional dull "thrump" kind of noise - like if someone gently pinged a long loosely stretched rubber band. It certainly isn't the kind of loud banging that would keep you awake at night.
I plan to try curing both these issues by cleaning the system with X400.
As far as I can tell, I need to:
- drain system
- pour X400 into header tank (I am going for 3 litres on the basis that Sentinel's website says 1 litre does 8-10 rads).
- then untie ballcock and allow header tank to refill
- leave for a couple of weeks
- drain again
- refill with plain water
- drain again
- pour Sentinel X100 into header tank (again I am thinking of 3 litres to be on the safe side)
- untie ballcock and allow header tank to refill
- add some X200 later on if the boiler noise persists
So, my questions are:
1. Does the above sound ok as far as the procedure and the quantities are concerned and have I missed anything?
2. Will it hurt that the system will have no inhibitor for a couple of weeks whilst the X400 does its stuff? Should I also put some X100 in with the X400 or is that just a waste of money?
3. Is it worth taking the rads off and flushing them out in the garden with a hose before using the X400 (given there are 15 of them I'd prefer not to)?
4. In the vicinity of the boiler, there are signs that some of the joints on the pipework have leaked (i.e. they have green crusty bits round the joints). They don't leak at present, but is there a danger the X400 may cause them to start leaking or weeping?
Apologies for the long post and thanks in advance for any advice.
Dave.
The house we bought a few months ago has a boiler which was installed in around 2000/2001 and radiators which (I guess) date from when the house was built in the early 60s. It is a standard open vent system.
My first concern is that the system may not currently have enough inhibitor in it.
In early December I had to drain the system down to replace a leaky valve. When I refilled it, I added a standard bottle (5 litres??) or Fernox MB1. However, I am a bit concerned that they may not have been enough.
If you count each double panel one as being two radiators, then we have 25 rads in total. Should I have used more than one container of MB1 and, if so, will it have made much odds given that we are only talking about a period of about 3 months?
If it makes any difference the heating system uses water that comes off the softener. I have seen some posts on here that say that is a bad thing, but the people who service the softener assure me it is ok.
The boiler was serviced in Feb and the system is basically ok. Just a couple of niggles:
1. A couple of rads are noticeably colder at the bottom than the top
2. The guy who serviced the boiler turned the control on it up from where I had it originally at around 33% up to about 75%. Since then I have noticed what I guess is a very slight kettling effect - i.e. a pretty quiet whooshing type noise from the boiler plus the occasional dull "thrump" kind of noise - like if someone gently pinged a long loosely stretched rubber band. It certainly isn't the kind of loud banging that would keep you awake at night.
I plan to try curing both these issues by cleaning the system with X400.
As far as I can tell, I need to:
- drain system
- pour X400 into header tank (I am going for 3 litres on the basis that Sentinel's website says 1 litre does 8-10 rads).
- then untie ballcock and allow header tank to refill
- leave for a couple of weeks
- drain again
- refill with plain water
- drain again
- pour Sentinel X100 into header tank (again I am thinking of 3 litres to be on the safe side)
- untie ballcock and allow header tank to refill
- add some X200 later on if the boiler noise persists
So, my questions are:
1. Does the above sound ok as far as the procedure and the quantities are concerned and have I missed anything?
2. Will it hurt that the system will have no inhibitor for a couple of weeks whilst the X400 does its stuff? Should I also put some X100 in with the X400 or is that just a waste of money?
3. Is it worth taking the rads off and flushing them out in the garden with a hose before using the X400 (given there are 15 of them I'd prefer not to)?
4. In the vicinity of the boiler, there are signs that some of the joints on the pipework have leaked (i.e. they have green crusty bits round the joints). They don't leak at present, but is there a danger the X400 may cause them to start leaking or weeping?
Apologies for the long post and thanks in advance for any advice.
Dave.
