Descaling/desludging heating
Martin Norris
alarming noises, more specifically a loud, constant
"grumbling" noise whenever the pump was on.
I assumed that the pump was on the way out, so I called
in ServiceCare who service the system. They told me that
in fact the noise is caused by limescale or sludge build
up which they don't deal with.
I've been investigating remedies for this, and I've come
across Sentinel X200 and X400. Has anyone used these?
X200 is for descaling and you leave this in the system.
X400 is for desludging and is flushed out after use. I rather
suspect the problem may be a combination of both sludge and
limescale - I had to have a radiator replaced over the summer
because it was so badly silted up with sludge and London water
contaminates everything it touches with scale.
Would it be reasonable to use X400 to remove the sludge, flush
the system and then put in the X200? Does X200, when left in,
provide full corrosion inhibition (eg against rust) or does it
just protect against limescale? X400 seems to be pretty powerful
stuff, and there's some risk that it may strip the inside of the
system so well that it starts leaking in places - is this a
realistic problem?
I should add that the system is gas fired, is in a fairly small
two bedroom flat and is probably 15 years old.
Thanks for any suggestions.
--
Martin Norris
m.no...@sas.ac.uk
Mr Jonathan Scott Crompton
>Would it be reasonable to use X400 to remove the sludge, flush
>the system and then put in the X200? Does X200, when left in,
>provide full corrosion inhibition (eg against rust) or does it
>just protect against limescale? X400 seems to be pretty powerful
>stuff, and there's some risk that it may strip the inside of the
>system so well that it starts leaking in places - is this a
>realistic problem?
Beware of agressive cleaning agents. My parents' boiler started
kettling, so they 'phoned their regular heating engineer. He was
leaving for his holiday, but told us we needed to clean out the system,
advised which chemicals to add, etc. We followed his instructions.
The results were spectacular.
We drained off some water and added the cleaning agent to the header
tank, and left the system running over night. By the morning, we
had brown water running from the hot and cold taps, and frothy water
spewing out of the overflow pipe on to the patio (which it etched).
As best we can work out, the cleaner had eaten through the secondary
coil in the hot water cylinder (or perhaps just descaled a limescale-
sealed leak). Once in to the hot water cylinder, the cleanser had
tainted the water brown. It had also reacted violently with the
limescale in the outer cylinder, and expanded up the vent pipe in to
the cold water cistern.
It took an awful lot of flushing to get the system clean. When we
replaced the hot water cylinder, it took two of us to carry the
old one down the stairs. It must have had 3" plus of limescale all
over the inside.
Perhaps we were fortunate. The join between the cylinder and the
boss where the supply pipe went in was so weak that it snapped off as
soon as the pipe was cut free. Had that pipe failed in situ, the
cold cistern would have fed the leak continually.
In conclusion, go easy with the cleaning products!
Jonathan.
Mike Haberfield
In article <821453...@clln.demon.co.uk>, Martin Norris <Mar...@clln.demon.co.uk> writes:
|>Several weeks ago my central heating started to make
|>alarming noises, more specifically a loud, constant
|>"grumbling" noise whenever the pump was on.
|>
|>I assumed that the pump was on the way out, so I called
|>in ServiceCare who service the system. They told me that
|>in fact the noise is caused by limescale or sludge build
|>up which they don't deal with.
|>I've been investigating remedies for this, and I've come
|>across Sentinel X200 and X400. Has anyone used these?
|>
|>X200 is for descaling and you leave this in the system.
|>X400 is for desludging and is flushed out after use. I rather
|>suspect the problem may be a combination of both sludge and
|>limescale - I had to have a radiator replaced over the summer
|>because it was so badly silted up with sludge and London water
|>contaminates everything it touches with scale.
|>
|>the system and then put in the X200? Does X200, when left in,
|>provide full corrosion inhibition (eg against rust) or does it
|>just protect against limescale? X400 seems to be pretty powerful
|>stuff, and there's some risk that it may strip the inside of the
|>system so well that it starts leaking in places - is this a
|>realistic problem?
|>
|>two bedroom flat and is probably 15 years old.
Ahhhh - now this does sound familiar!
I've had a British Gas 3* contract for the past 3 years and this year I
noticed that they have modified the wording of the contract so that they no
longer cover problems caused by limescale & sludge build-up.
I live in the North West of London where the water is the hardest I have
ever encountered anywhere.
For the previous couple of years I've called them in to flush out the rads
because there was so much sludge in them that they only managed to get hot
from about half way up. After flushing out and installing Sentinel they're
performing quite nicely thankyou.
They initially flushed the whole system through with clean water, then refilled
it adding Sentinel X400 which was left to work for a couple of weeks.
They then came back and flushed it all out again and refilled this time adding
Sentinel X200 as an inhibitor.
I have to say that it has made a great improvement - the rads are much hotter
and my gas bills are significantly lower too!!!!
I'm glad I got them to do it when it was part of the contract :-)))
On the down-side, I have heared reports from other people saying that as a
result of removing the limescale from the system it can increase the risk of
leaking joints - the limescale was all that was stopping the leak in the first
place.
Cheers,
Mike
--
+=========================================================+
| Mike Haberfield | |
| MTi Trading Systems | mike_ha...@mtits.co.uk |
| Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK | |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Views expressed and statements made are mine, not MTi's |
| 2B | ~2B = Q |
+=========================================================+