Central Heating System - descaler - no flushing needed???

valve90210 · 5 Jan 2010 at 17:02

Hi All

Last year (well november 2008 actually) when I was having problems with my central heating system, the chap that came out to look at it for me (a friend of a friend) put some descaling stuff into the system to help get rid of any scale etc that might be moving around the system and blocking up the heat exchanger causing kettling in the boiler.

The heating, whilst still working doesn't seem to be performing as well as it might at the moment and I'd like to put in a fresh batch of the descaling stuff as a starting point but I dont know what it was called.

It was a smallish bottle (half a litre-ish) and once added could just be left, no need to add any other chemicals afterwards and no need to flush the system at all.

Does anyone know what it might have been and where I can get hold of it, so I can give it a try as a starting point to getting the heating working nicely again?

Thanks for any help.

Valve

LiamC · 5 Jan 2010 at 17:05

It will be a sentinel product.

sentinel sludge remover maybe?

FlyingFish · 5 Jan 2010 at 17:31

http://www.sentinel-solutions.net/product/category/central-heating/

Pick the chemical that is right to do the job you want, for your type of system.

If scale/sludge is a problem then it would be a good idea to have a filter fitted:

http://www.adeysolutions.co.uk/Professional2.asp or http://www.adeysolutions.co.uk/TwinTech.asp

Install a Magnaclean, put the chemical in the system, as the chemical 'loosens' up the crap, the Magnaclean catches it all ready for you to clean it out when you want, before it damages your boiler.

We have been fitting Magnacleans for quite a while now and they are great at looking after peoples new HE boilers, on existing radiator sytems. Cos its normally the rads that create most of the muck in a heating system.

Mick

wassap · 5 Jan 2010 at 18:27

Me and the old man have been busy fixing our system today, its a 14 year old combi system, but the boiler got replaced 4 years ago. the system has been crap the last year or so, and finally failed this cold spell.

We tried to flush the system but it seemed relatively clear, until we tried to reverse flush, and bang, blockage ahoy, finally found a scary blockage on the flow pipe on the boiler, ive had to ram a screwdriver down to smash the scale/sludge up(?), thats all cleared up, so im gonna put it all back together and stick some of that sentinel sludge remover in for a week or so, and then some inhibitor to prevent stuff like this again.

This is what the sludge was like :

philjohn · 5 Jan 2010 at 23:36

Isn't the sludge the corroding interior metal face of the rads? In that case, doubly want some inhibitor in there...need to get round to doing it myself.

CurlyWhirly · 6 Jan 2010 at 21:39

philjohn said:
Isn't the sludge the corroding interior metal face of the rads? In that case, doubly want some inhibitor in there...need to get round to doing it myself.

I still have an old microbore central heating system in my house (it was there when I moved in) and I also had a slufge build-up meaning that my boiler wasn't working properly and also my central heating pump stopped working due to a magnetite build-up.

I had a power-flush and had a magnaclean device installed that stops sludge building up in the first place.

This sludge build-up is what causes the magnetite to form.
It was so bad that the pipes coming in and out of the pump were almost completely blocked :eek: