An 'engineer' was fixing our boiler at work, he reckons CH installations should have Magnaclean filters on them. I'd always thought they were snake oil, opinions please, if there's genuine benefit to be had i'll add one.
The manufacturers will often give an extra 10 years guarantee if one is fitted with a new boiler. The main gotcha is the boiler has to be installed by one of their approved installers, the magnetic filter usually has to be the one they supply/recommend and the boiler has to be serviced once a year.
The reason given is that on high efficiency boilers the water channels are narrow and are easily blocked. A filter in the return path will catch the magnetite and rust which often lives in the bottom of older radiators or in systems without inhibitors.
In my experience the crud in the radiators is stirred up during a drain down and fill operation and is then drawn around the system.
I fitted a magnetic filter to my older system and on subsequent drain/fill cycles it caught rather a lot of magnetic crap/sludge. Before a replacement boiler my system was power flushed and a manufacturers filter fitted. The radiators were 20 years old and from new the system was run with an inhibitor. The power flush did remove a lot of sludge but on checking a few weeks later the filter had still caught a lot of very fine particles.
Photo of what my filter caught in a 10 month period before I had a new boiler (and power flush)
Are you confusing a Magnaclean with something that claims to reduce limescale?
It's just a magnet to trap corrosion from rusting radiators.
See
In message <tnd1f9$2r9i4$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, R D S snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com writes
There is one fitted with my system boiler. More to avoid arguments about guarantees than any chance of the magnet collecting anything. No steel radiators, plastic underfloor piping and copper heat exchange coils for the thermal store.
It did gather some non magnetic muck so not totally wasted.
Not snake oil - they do what is claimed. How much you need one will depend. On a system that has been well maintained, and kept regularly treated with inhibitor, there will likely be little to collect - although IME they will collect some.
When we moved in here there was a traditional vented CH system with old cast iron floor standing boiler. Obviously I had no knowledge of how well it had been maintained, and also being vented there was more scope for corrosion in the first place.
So when I replaced that, I did a chemical clean on the old system a week before ripping it out. Then a very careful mains water flush, and installed the new system with inhibitor which I have maintained since.
I installed a Fernox dual action filter with magnetic collection and also cyclonic filtering to catch non magnetic debris. It generally collects between a teaspoon and a table spoon of material each year. So over the years has removed a fair amount of accumulated stuff. In the grans scheme of things it is not a significant expense in context of a boiler install, and it does make a handy place to does the system with inhibitor.
30 second video - ideal position for a magnetic filter
Yep. Our 5 year old Magnaclean still removes a couple of tablespoons of muck a year. Was cleaning it weekly when first installed.
Cheers Alan and all, i'll add one in.
The problem I guess is that any ferrous material will tend to stop where that device is. Now that depends on the material, its not going to work on copper or brass bits is it? Its a bit like the electronic lime scale remover. Those are not so much snake oil as only working to narrow the paper due to the clumped together particles stuck inside. Brian
If you have Ferrous metals in your system ... then a Magncalean is worthwhile. I have no Ferrous in my system .... but had to fit a Magncean with new boiler the get 10 years warranty.
My parents house has a typical Rad system, although the system is under yearly service contract, thought I'd check the Magnaclean unit (not that make) it was full of black sludge ..... doing its job. though question why service engineer wasn't doing his !
IME the great majority of the particles are removed by the screen not the magnet. Why anyone would buy a magnet only type I don't know.
My Magnaclean doesn't have a screen, just a plastic basket surrounding the core. Surely removing anything from the system is better than not removing anything even though we all know that it is better to try & prevent formation in the first place.
I don't think any of these filters have a screen possibly because blocked screen would also block water flow.
Are you aware of any CH system filter that has a screen?
VW beetles never had a replaceable oil filter, just a gauze trap of some kind that had to be washed out very frequently.
Bullshit on the very frequently and I had one.
They were washed out when the oil was changed, just like with engines with a replaceable oil filter.
Zeetec. If I had to choose between a blocked filter and a blocked boiler, I'd go with the blocked filter. They're trivial to empty.
When viewing some youtube videos about the Zeetec you suggested they confirm what you are saying and seem to catch virtually nothing on the magnetised rod and everything in the mesh filter. The water passes through the filter first and only crap less than 80 microns gets through. The total amount of crap they capture seems consistent with the magnet only types. The difference being the latter don't restrict the water flow whereas the Zeetec can seriously restrict the water flow, probably well within a year if the have an older CH system with steel/iron radiators.
I like the way the Zeetec is advertised of being able to capture the sawdust in the central heating system :)
3 types of solid junk can occur:
- iron corrosion products, magnetic
- bio-garbage, less often, not magnetic, very likely to block when it happens
- and other nonmagnetic debris that drops into header tanks one way or another
A screen + magnet captures the lot, a magnet doesn't.
A bigger point is that magnets only hold so much. If a system gets very cruddy I'd rather need to empty the filter than flush out the boiler. You can choose the latter if you prefer.
In my personal experience the magnet in these filter can hold massive amount of crud and a lot more than would totally block the mesh filters in a Zeetec filter. However, irrespective of what filter is preferred they need to be serviced regularly to ensure proper operation, possibly a couple of times immediately after a drain/refill then every 6 to 12 months thereafter.
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