Flushing CH system

[allan]

I have maintenance contract with gas board for Central heating system but this does not cover flushing out and I believe that this is a costly operation to have gas board do it.My upstairs radiators are very slow to heat up and I think flushing out would help to get better flow.Was thinking of just opening discharge valve and draining out the system and topping it up again,of course releasing air in the radiators at the same time.Can there be any problem in doing this? My system is fully pumped with Baxi Bermuda boiler I would appreciate any help with this .

allan

[Invisible Man]

I am not an expert but you can get fluids for flushing and then for protecting. I would not fill the system with just plain water. When I drain my current system I get nightmare air locks. Are the radiators balanced?

[Dennis Becker]

Depends how bad the problem is. Flushing the system with clean water till it ran clear worked for me, although some of the sediment in the well of each radiator will remain. A British Gas engineer told me that their power flushing is a waste of time and money, and that the only way to completely drain the system was to remove each radiator in turn and flush it through. Not a 5 minute job. I presume you have already checked for air locks and that the pump is OK.

[nobby]

[allan]

Im not sure that I know about the radiators being balanced ,and ,where would a bypass valve used..The pump appears to be ok as the gas board fitters have not said that there is anything wrong Thanks for replies.

allan

[Michael Shergold]

Not sure what British Gas do but I was pretty impressed with the Power Flushing that my system had from an independent engineer before a boiler replacement.. The engineer took about five hours as each radiator is flushed individually and several flushes were hot and on one of the hottest days of the year the guy was running up and down the stairs to the various rooms closing and opening valves and checking flow and sediment and changing solutions in the powerflush system etc. Not sure what it cost but it certainly ended up with a clean system and he certainly worked pretty hard at it. Michael