Hi,
I have an obsolete 8mm microbore CH system with pipework badly full of that hard black stuff. Several rads have never got hot for years.
The house has a soild floor so that means that the pipework is buried in the walls and plumbers say the only solution is replacing the pipes , ha bloody ha.
Last week I took a chance and tried to clear the pipes with mains pressure. I'm firing up this w/e - wish me luck.
The reason I accessed this site was to ask if using mains pressure was a reasonable idea! It seems like I've re-invented the wheel. It's clearly a tried and tested method.
One thing I would add: many of you are professionals working in someone else's house and so this isn't an option. But what I did was to isolate each individual suspect pipe by removing the valve at one end and disconnecting the pipe from the manifold the other end. Then I blasted water from the mains straight down the pipe. We'll see.
There are 2 things more I think it valuable to mention.:
I found that I could shift more grot by forcing water down the pipe with a large ( 60mL ) plastic syringe by hand than was being dislodged by the mains! I even added some ordinary builder's sand to the water to act as an abrasive. I cant tell if it was better, but it does seem to me that some kind of abrasive material ( glass beads? ) might be an improvement on the 'power flusher with detergent' treatment currently in use.
Second: For £50 you can get a pressure washer which produces considerably more than mains pressure. I simply dont know if it's feasible to connect one to a microbore pipe ( I wouldn't try this except on an isolated pipe ) Does anyone have any bright ideas?
Regards
Bruce
I have an obsolete 8mm microbore CH system with pipework badly full of that hard black stuff. Several rads have never got hot for years.
The house has a soild floor so that means that the pipework is buried in the walls and plumbers say the only solution is replacing the pipes , ha bloody ha.
Last week I took a chance and tried to clear the pipes with mains pressure. I'm firing up this w/e - wish me luck.
The reason I accessed this site was to ask if using mains pressure was a reasonable idea! It seems like I've re-invented the wheel. It's clearly a tried and tested method.
One thing I would add: many of you are professionals working in someone else's house and so this isn't an option. But what I did was to isolate each individual suspect pipe by removing the valve at one end and disconnecting the pipe from the manifold the other end. Then I blasted water from the mains straight down the pipe. We'll see.
There are 2 things more I think it valuable to mention.:
I found that I could shift more grot by forcing water down the pipe with a large ( 60mL ) plastic syringe by hand than was being dislodged by the mains! I even added some ordinary builder's sand to the water to act as an abrasive. I cant tell if it was better, but it does seem to me that some kind of abrasive material ( glass beads? ) might be an improvement on the 'power flusher with detergent' treatment currently in use.
Second: For £50 you can get a pressure washer which produces considerably more than mains pressure. I simply dont know if it's feasible to connect one to a microbore pipe ( I wouldn't try this except on an isolated pipe ) Does anyone have any bright ideas?
Regards
Bruce