sludge and blocked CH in 3 year old system

[John2016]

Hi,

Parents recently moved to a new home which is three years old. The previous owner never told us of some of the heating issue they had. One of the radiator does not heat up and most rads have cold spots in the lower middle section.

We have a BG engineer turn up and provide a free service as part of the house and he mentioned that they system is probably blocked with and the microbore system is a nightmare to flush.

Can a new CH system which is three years old develop sludge which can block the system, is this normal?

Ta.

 

[cross thread]

it could be in a poor system

 

[John2016]

I managed to catch one of the hand men who work in the area as the house is still covered under warranty and he mentioned the system was not flushed. I was shocked as I thought every new system had to be flushed. He mention, they don't flush these systems as its mostly plastic pipes - is this the case for a microbore system?

 

[steve32]

If non barrier speedfit pipe has been fitted then yes it would cause sludge build up

 

[John2016]

Thanks,

Have checked the pipes and its by a company called polyfit - are these any good?

 

[John2016]

I'm just really surprised that a 3 year old system would have so many problems.

We have a S plan system which is linked to 3 two ports values, ground floor heating (3 radiators), first and second floor heating (9 radiators) and hot water.

When we only have the ground heating up, the boiler some times turns off but the pump is still running. However, this is never the case when we heat the first and second floor. Would this be because the ground floor radiator are less and therefore the return flow is taking hot water back into the system?

Thanks.

 

[Steelmasons]

I doubt the system has a sludge issue after 3 years...look elsewhere for the problem.

 

[Madrab]

I'd be looking at possible clawback from the sellers if it's been a blatant avoidance of them not informing about a failing heating system.

Difficult to diagnose without being onsite, get a recommended GSR installer in to survey. As @Steelmasons mentions, would be hard pushed to have a system sludging up that badly so quickly unless its been a real bad install and if so then refer to point 1.

 

[Agile]

When your unspecified boiler is only supplying a few rads downstairs, its power output is too great for the heat output from the rads and so it cycles on and off to match its minimum output with the heat being dissipated by the rads.

Tony

 

[John2016]

Would a BG engineer be classed as a CH engineer, we had them over few days back and they mention the system being block by 'sludge deposits' which could one of the main reasons for the rad not heating up.

Do you think it would be worth having the system flushed or even a magaclean filter of some sort installed?

Thanks

 

[Agile]

Firstly the problem needs to be properly diagnosed.

Then whatever is required to solve the problem needs to be specified.

That could include a magnetic filter and flushing.

Microbore does not respond as well as normally sized pipework.

Tony

 

[oilboffin]

You'll not be able to flush microbore the cross sectional area is not great enough.Bob

 

[gigz]

How did this mush know it had'nt been flushed ? Is it a sealed system or does it have a header tank ? Does it have cheap towel rails fitted ?

 

[John2016]

Its a sealed system, the person who mentioned the system was not flushed works for the company who also did the plumbing for the house when it was built. He said as most of the pipes are plastic it was not within our remit to flush the system.

No towel rails, all rads.

A mate has lent me a thermal camera to look at the heaters, while taking the pictures I started to notice small erratic bubbling noises from some of the radiators. It is like something is bubbling at a contact speed and then speeds up and then slows back down again. I tried to record the noise and have amplified it as much as possible using my phone. Maybe someone can advise if they've heard this before:

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1hd4IU9TqmD

I've also added the pictures of the two rads from the terminal camera, showing the cold spot in the middle:

https://postimg.org/image/5ejbhofix/
https://postimg.org/image/zc80zkw8v/

 

[Gasguru]

Can't see a cold spot there...more like insufficient flowrate due to poor balancing etc.

Feel the temperature of the pipes each end...you're aiming at 10 to 20 degrees difference when the rads up to temperature, more than would indicate an insufficent flowrate.

If you're achieving that temperature drop AND the rads cool in the middle then you probably have a genuine case of sludge buildup....but it's extremely rare.