Can anybody recognise this plumbing item. I think it may be a de-aerator

I have this item in my central heating system and want to confirm what it does. is it a de-aerator?

Does anybody recognise the manufacturer and which is the inlet/outlet port, upper or lower.

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Reply to
Tim
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I'm not sure who the manufacturer of this one is, but the concept is the same as the Myson Aerjec. Look at

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part number

11334

On yours, the feed expansion pipe would connect at the left (15mm pipe) and the vent goes where you have marked it.

The purpose is to get the FE and vent pipes close together; then the other 22mm pipes are on the main circuit. The water swirls in the cylindrical pot and even fairly fine air bubbles will tend to rise up and out at the vent.

Reply to
Andy Hall

It is a de-aerator for a vented home central heating system..

I had an identical one. There were others.

It was bought unboxed from a builders merchant. Maybe 25 years ago.The manufacturer was not indicated.

I'd guess in at the top, out at the bottom so that the flow from the inlet doesn't sweep the bubbles up and around the outlet such that some go with the flow. Probably doesn't make a lot of difference unless air is continually entering the system which cannot be tolerated anyway.

They seem to have been de-emphasised now with the advance of sealed systems and a better understanding of pumping -over.

DG

Reply to
Derek ^

Thanks Andy & Derek. Curiously the heating installation had this deaerator and a couple of those ball float designs, which seemed a bit redundant to me.

Derek, I am curious of your remark about the 'better understanding of pumping'. Could you clarify this or point me to a URL please?

Best Tim

Reply to
Tim

I also had the Myson one that Andy mentioned. That one was new and boxed and came with an propaganda leaflet that illustrated all the myriad possible "wrong" ways of setting up the feed and expansion, flow and return piping, and the siting of the pump in order to avoid such nasties as "pumping - over" or negative pressure in parts of the system.

The leaflet implied the one sure fire way of avoiding all the problems was by using a Myson Aerjec.

Apparently this was an issue of concern at the time, this was 25 years ago. Since one encounters these things so infrequently and most new build houses since then have been built with wet c/h without a proprietory de-aerator, I presume that eventually the optimum set up became the norm.

I could find no mention of de-aerators on the Myson site and their piping layout diagrams don't include them.

DG

Reply to
Derek Geldard

Yes, in terms of avoiding sucking down or pumping over, positioning the vent pipe and FE pipe within 150mm of one another on the circuit avoids the problem.

However, some people managed and still do manage to put one on each side of the boiler (wrong because of boiler flow resistance) or worse still on either side of the pump.

Air separators effectively force the plumbing to be done correctly.

The second aspect is that the design of the pot swirls the water and helps get the air out after initial filling. I fitted one on a system a few years ago that had has the FE and vent pipes simply connected to the circuit within 150mm and it did make an improvement, although not a vast one.

Better yet is to convert the system to sealed operation if the boiler is OK for that.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Not quite. Almost all modern boilers prefer a sealed pressurised system. These devices are only for vented systems which have been rarely fitted since the 1990s. As it is only existing systems that would need one and, by definition, they are already installed so need few parts to be bought, they are rarely seen in the plumbers' merchants.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

We had one fitted here, in about 1997. We were having a new boiler installed in a different room and going from a gravity-fed-hot-water system to a fully pumped system. Pipe-routing and space considerations meant that the layout was not what the plumber would consider ideal, and the pump had to be located upstairs in the airing cupboard rather than down by the boiler. The plumber expressed reservations about all this, muttering something about air bubbles, and recommended a de-aerator. This could all be complete bollocks of course, but it made some kind of sense to me in that a pump operating in "pull" mode instead of "push" mode might cause air induction or make air come out of solution.

Anyway it's no trouble, and I don't imagine it cost very much. The boiler has always made quite a lot of air-bubbling noises, though.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

I am not sure if I am up to that task just yet!

I found the manufacture of the device. It's a Tower Airjet Air Seperator and there's a PDF app note with its manufacturer detail here:

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Reply to
Tim

According to BS rules 10 years or so, you didn't need an expansion pipe, as long as you used a cold feed pipe of min 20mm internal diameter, and where the system components were suitable for sealed operation.

Much easier to add fernox, or if you have to refill the system to collect the fernox solution and reuse it.

Reply to
Fred

Nope. They were not liked as they could accumulate sludge and block up. Also, many did not understand how they worked which was the main problem. This 3 port type, as opposed to the 4 port type, is used a lot with combined vent and feed pipe systems (one 22mm pipe into the bottom of the F&E tank and no vent pipe over the top). On boilers capable of being sealed systems, combined feed and vent pipes can be used and I prefer them to two-pipe feed and vent (no pump over or air being sucked in. Some boilers makers, such as Baxi and Potterton, stipulate that these air ejectors should be on the combined feed and vent pipe to expel air. They work very well. With combined feed and vent a very low head can be obtained, so ideal for loft fitting of boilers. To alleviate fears of sludge accumulating in the air ejectors it is best to fit a Maganclean on the boiler return pipe, which grabs magnetite that causes sludge. The Magnaclean protects the whole system too.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

They do that. I have had to remove a blockage in the top pipe of one of these with a drill, it was totally blocked. Cut pipe, drill out blockage, recouple. PITA.

Reply to
Chris Bacon

Best to have the 4 port with the pipe out of the bottom. extend the bottom and have removable cap to clear out sludge and debris. Solids will drop to the bottom.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

There is no reason that this problem should happen or one of these devices needed as long as the system is correctly dosed with inhibitor. It is dealing with the problem in the wrong way.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Matt, on a boiler change a Maganclean I would say is essential as desludger never gets it all out. If the system is not re-dosed, and 95% are not , then the Magnaclean prevents blockages. Got it?

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

This is bullshit.

If a system is badly sludged, then just using desludger is not good enough anyway. It needs to be powerflushed or some equivalent to that.

When a boiler is changed, it should be done using the Benchmark procedures and these include filling with inhibitor.

I do not believe that that only amounts to 5% of installations.

3/10. Must try harder.
Reply to
Andy Hall

Matt, again..."If the system is not re-dosed, and 95% are not, then the Magnaclean prevents blockages. Got it?

** snip appalling Mattness **
Reply to
Doctor Drivel

I don't buy that either. You are pulling numbers from parts of your anatomy from whence the sun don't shine....

Reply to
Andy Hall

Matt, again..."If the system is not re-dosed, and 95% are not, then the Magnaclean prevents blockages". Got it?

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Do you really think, in your wildest dreams that if somebody isn't going to be bothered to have their system correctly dosed with inhibitor that they will bother with one of these or that the type of fitter that they are likely to employ will bother either?

You're going to have to try a lot harder to win that promotional flight of ducks set for your living room wall. Don't forget that it's a new month now and time for a new boiler of the month...

Reply to
Andy Hall

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