Air separators - such as Screwfix 90641 have been mentioned from time to time.
They seem to consist of two concentric cylinders, with four connections - one each end and two off the side, near the ends.
Can anyone enlighten me as to:
TIA.
I'm not sure about that specific one, but the principle is that you bring the feed/expansion pipe, the vent and an in/out connection to the circuit together, with the vent at the top.
The water in the circuit passes through the chamber and air bubbles rise out from it. Some of them have a baffle or equivalent arrangement inside to provide a longer path (more time) in the chamber.
Apart from separating air out, because the vent and feed pipes join at a common location, there should be no pump over or suck down either.
Thanks for that. Presumably they can only be used in vented - and not sealed - systems?
I'm sure I'm missing something... surely fitting these masks any problems - if I have to continually bleed a radiator then I would look for where air is getting into the system - with one of these fitted I'd never know.
Peter
">
Also will bleed out any gases produced that are not soluble in water. I've got one on one of our systems - not sure how good it is though. Nick
I would look at it the other way round.
You shouldn't be getting air sucked into the system via the vent when one of these is installed, so this leaves only joints for introduction of air.
The more typical scenario of gas build up in radiators if it isn't suck down from the vent is hydrogen from corrosion and that's a different issue. You will still get some build-up of hydrogen in radiators.
They are sometimes necessary because at the position of the T where th open vent comes off there is a slight negative pressure which prevent the air in the system from escaping at this point while the pump i running. This can cause a build up of air which eventually leeds t steam. The old way of dealing with this was quite effective, it was t put a T one size larger than the pipe size at this point, i.e. a 28mm for 22mm pipes. The expansion so caused allows the air to escape durin normal operation. There is no benefit to leaving the air in your syste so you can blead it through a rad vent that I can think of. You alway get gas created anyway, you don't need your radiators to be telling yo that. Let it go free
-- Paul Barker
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.