I had my Worcester combi boiler serviced last week, and the engineer suggested that the system needed flushing out as the water in the system was discoloured.
I spoke to a local plumber who told me that it if was working, then leave it alone. He added that his policy was to leave well alone. I might add that the boiler is working well.
So, as a consumer and householder with no technical knowledge what should I do?
Thank you, pfj
If its not broke... Brian
Could go either way.
If the water is badly discoloured then the insides of the radiators are probably rusting - that gives a black colour to the water.
The question then is has the water used up all the oxygen and so not able to rust any more, or is there oxygen getting in and more rusting taking place.
I assume that you have inhibitor in to reduce or stop internal rusting?
Things you could do.
Do nothing.
Add some inhibitor (helps if you know what type is already in).
Flush out the system (replace the current water with new) and add inhibitor.
As all of the above but add a magnetic filter to the system. This should in time remove the rust in the water (which makes it look dirty) but won't address any corrosion issues.
How old are the radiators? See the thread just below about power flushing if the radiators are old and have cold spots at the bottom in the middle.
Cheers
Dave R
Fit a magna clean or similar then you can seen how much crap is being collected. Flushing/adding cleaning solutions is to be avoided if possible as it can expose/create other problems with leaks etc.
If you are getting poor performance then that is a different matter and should be investigated.
+1
Once you have a Magna Clean it's also easy to top up the inhibitor.
What type of boiler _service_ will have revealed the colour of the water flowing in the system? Maybe a bleed of radiators may have revealed discoloured water but if there was a lot of air in the radiators the discolouration could just have been a bit of rust at the top of the radiators being flushed out.
My gut feeling is leave alone. If you change the boiler perhaps consider a flush and/or a magnet filter.
Check you've got a magnatec/zetec filter, those will filter out crud & prevent blockages. If not it's wise to fit one, much cheaper than fixing the inevitable years later.
NT
How many times has the OP had to repressurise, which adds fresh oxygenated water. ?.
If hardly ever, then all the O2 will have been used up, OTOH if there was inhibitor, it needs to be replenished, so a drain down and run with flushing cleaner, then redrain and adding new inhibitor could extend its life.
Andrew wrote in news:p90qff$144$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org:
Power flushing is a money earning fad. IMHO
Thank you for all of the replies and advice. The system is working well, and I'll leave it alone. Thanks again. pfj
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