Sludge

[fotim]

I had a Worcester Bosch 28i Junior plus full C/H sytem installed about 3/4 years ago by a Corgi registered installer who I recall put some sort of treatment in the system (inhibitor, I think was the word he used). The house had not had central heating previously.

A few days ago the hot water started running brown and took ages to clear. The Worcester guy came today and amongst other things replaced the heat exchanger. He said the system was full of sludge - so much so it was the worst he's seen for some time. He had no explanation for the accumulation of sludge in a relatively new system but compared the problem with boliers he'd seen that hadn't been cleaned for 20 years!

I know I could get a Powerflush to resolve the problem but quite honestly if it's going to cost £400 every 3 to 4 years, I would rather deal with the cause than the effect. Anyone got any ideas why there might be so much sludge in such a short time?

 

[Stingray13]

Where the radiaitors replaced with the boiler was it cleaned, x400 or simlar when installed, do you have to keep topping the system up? i.e the pressure keeps falling on the display.

What type of inhibitor was used?

 

[fotim]

Where the radiaitors replaced with the boiler was it cleaned, x400 or simlar when installed, do you have to keep topping the system up? i.e the pressure keeps falling on the display.

What type of inhibitor was used?

the boiler and radiators were brand new 3 years ago, no problems with water pressure. Sorry I don't know what inhibitor was used.

 

[malkie]

Did you see the sludge in the heating side of the system or did he just tell you its really bad

 

[malkie]

My point being your proplem with dirty water from the taps could just be the mains inlet being filthy,has there been any work done in the area on the water mains?,

 

[ChrisR]

That could mean that the secondary heat exchanger had a hole inside, between the primary, dirty, boiler water and the tap water.
If so you would normally have noticed pressure going up even when it shouldn't. Did you see that?

One effect would be constant oxygenation of the boiler water, which WOULD cause corrosion and lots of sludge.

 

[fotim]

Thanks for the replies chaps. I didn't see the sludge - he told me it was really bad. No work on the water mains in the area. The pressure had risen considerably in the last few days. He did say that normally he would expect to see clean water with a heat exchanger fault but said something about the expansion valve(?) being badly clogged up which affected the boiler pressure v water pressure (lost me) and explained the dirty water.

I guess the best thing to do might be to write to the Worcester technical people - presumably they don't offer maintainence contracts in the expectation of major repairs every three years?