Central Heating Header Tank Culture

[TheScullster]

Hi all

Discovered recently that there was something dodgy in my header tank. This has occurred since a heating upgrade in October last year. Strange beige coloured scum on the surface and very murky water so you can't see the bottom of the tank (even with a torch).

Applied some Fernox AF10 having cleaned out the tank as thoroughly as possible. As I baled out the tank it was like there very decomposed shreds of newspaper coming out with the water.

The question is, will the rest of the water in the system be affected this way, or is this localised to the header tank? If it recurrs, the advice on the AF10 bottle was to that the system may need steralising. Anyone know what's involved in steralising a CH header tank?

Any other experiences of this stuff welcome.

TIA

Phil

[Aidan]

Usually confined to the header tank, I believe. The high temperatures in the heating flow and return pipes will kill any organisms, but the temperatures in the F&E tank and the nutrients will encourage the proliferation of any bugs that get in. I think a scrub out with bleach, wearing PPE (gloves, goggles, respirator) was recommended.

I had similar problems but switched to a sealed system.

[Owain]

Toilet paper? Plumber took a dump in the loft?

Owain

[RzB]

"TheScullster" wrote

When I had this problem a few months ago I replaced the header tank. Not a difficult job and cheap.

I had the system drained down for other reasons and made sure a bottle of AF10 went into the rads when refilling. Also added a bottle to the header tank.

The Fernox technical support team were very helpful. Might be worth giving them a call.

Roy