MagnaClean and powerflush?

[lou49]

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Hi everyone. We have a 20 odd year old gas central heating system. We had a new Vaillant boiler fitted in June 2007 by a recommended CORGI engineer, plus a flush.

The rad in our kitchen was cold in patches so I decided to bleed it this lunchtime. Evidently I turned the valve too hard so the pin came out and there was water spurting out everywhere. Cue a somewhat excited call to British Gas with whom we have a home care agreement, thank heavens. Their engineer, really nice guy (who was the one who shut off our old boiler in 2007) came on an emergency call. My dd had already noticed that the pin from the rad valve was on the floor so we had managed to stop the water coming out (after umpteen buckets of water and towels and so on). She's a star!

Anyway, the engineer said we should ideally have a power flush ( £805) and a Magnaclean device, or at the least a Magnaclean only (£350). Before I speak to the guy who put in the new boiler in 2007, please could I get some advice from you experts on here? Should we really be doing this?

Thanks so much.
Louise

[ifti]

that is very expensive,

best is to wait until corgi guy replies to your message,

im not sure how to advise you on the powerflush or the magna clean but its usually only needed if you have a very bad CH system thats is full of sludge and limescale.

the powerflush you could do yourself but its very rarely needed and somtimes leads to leaks of joints and stuff in the pipe work.

i was once in a shop where a guy was returning the powerflush solution becuase he was worried his pipe work might mess up after doing the power flush

hope this helps

[ifti]

forgot to add our CH system is also very old, around emm 30+ years and its good as gold.

we have had the boiler changed since then and its a vailiant too.

we put a cleaner in it and ran it for a week before draining and re-filling with a inhibitor.

[Canucklehead]

Originally Posted by lou49

Anyway, the engineer said we should ideally have a power flush ( £805) and a Magnaclean device, or at the least a Magnaclean only (£350). Before I speak to the guy who put in the new boiler in 2007, please could I get some advice from you experts on here? Should we really be doing this?

Thanks so much.
Louise

Good afternoon: ...outrageous prices but not unexpected from BG. Call the original installer..your CH system shouldn't require a powerflush if the boiler was installed according to Vaillant's specification/Best Practice....very suspect to say the least.
My OH installs Vaillant and Viessmann boilers: he always powerflushes, adds inhibitor to the CH system and fits a Boiler Buddy (scale reducer on combis as well in hard water areas) as standard practice. Your Vaillant should still be under warranty (unless it is an EcoTech Pro).

HTH

Canucklehead

[andrew-b]

Have a read of my recent thread here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...html?t=1241043

A powerflush AND magnaclean should cost you about £350 for both...not just the magnaclean!! As you'll see from Razor's post on that thread some of BG's powerflushes BG gives him only 48 minutes to do them. I hope what they offering you is not one of those as that's alot of money for not long! It took nearly a whole day for a heating engineer to powerflush my parents system and most of that time hot water was pouring out down the drain too as they said it worked better when hot (i'm not convinced but goodness knows what it cost them in gas!)

I considered hiring a powerflush machine but on discussing it with my father who got advice from the heating engineer flushing his system as part of a boiler change i've decided not to.

I've been warned that there's a chance that the extra pressure of the powerflush might open up any weak joints in the pipework of my gravity-fed system. I didn't really want to create myself extra problems that i'm less able to deal with.

Bearing in mind your bleed valve incident this morning i think you should pay someone to sort it out for you (but i'd get other quotes first!). As for the bleed valve incident i wish you'd come on here then as one of us here would have told you how to isolate the valves either side of the radiator and reduce the water loss. For future reference you should have turned off the radiator valve, taken off the cap on the lockshield valve at the other end of the rad and turned the top part clockwise using a spanner (or pliers will do but shouldn't be used all the time else you'll round off the nut). If the valves didn't work then you would have needed to turn off the mains cold supply at the stop c*ck - to limit it to about 4 gallons of lost water (if it's a gravity fed system). Worth familiarising yourself with the system now rather than waiting for emergency situations.

Funnily enough i bled our radiators only this morning and did exactly the same thing in the kitchen dropping the bleed valve on the floor! I was quick to put it back though and it wasn't quite as bad as the bleed valve was blocked by a bit of paint stuck in there which is why i opened it so far in the first place!

If you've lost loads of water from the heating system you likely need to add some more central heating protector (chemical) to restore it's level of concentration - though you should always add the same type of protector that is already in the system (or at least that's what the manufacturer's would have us believe - not sure of the validity of this one!).

Incidentally, anyone know where i can get that new Magnaclean Twintech yet as i'm still looking to buy one.

Andy

[Canucklehead]

Originally Posted by andrew-b

Have a read of my recent thread here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...html?t=1241043

A powerflush AND magnaclean should cost you about £350 for both...not just the magnaclean!! As you'll see from Razor's post on that thread some of BG's powerflushes BG gives him only 48 minutes to do them. I hope what they offering you is not one of those as that's alot of money for not long! It took nearly a whole day for a heating engineer to powerflush my parents system and most of that time hot water was pouring out down the drain too as they said it worked better when hot (i'm not convinced but goodness knows what it cost them in gas!)

I considered hiring a powerflush machine but on discussing it with my father who got advice from the heating engineer flushing his system as part of a boiler change i've decided not to.

I've been warned that there's a chance that the extra pressure of the powerflush might open up any weak joints in the pipework of my gravity-fed system. I didn't really want to create myself extra problems that i'm less able to deal with.

Bearing in mind your bleed valve incident this morning i think you should pay someone to sort it out for you (but i'd get other quotes first!). As for the bleed valve incident i wish you'd come on here then as one of us here would have told you how to isolate the valves either side of the radiator and reduce the water loss. For future reference you should have turned off the radiator valve, taken off the cap on the lockshield valve at the other end of the rad and turned the top part clockwise using a spanner (or pliers will do but shouldn't be used all the time else you'll round off the nut). If the valves didn't work then you would have needed to turn off the mains cold supply at the stop c*ck - to limit it to about 4 gallons of lost water (if it's a gravity fed system). Worth familiarising yourself with the system now rather than waiting for emergency situations.

Funnily enough i bled our radiators only this morning and did exactly the same thing in the kitchen dropping the bleed valve on the floor! I was quick to put it back though and it wasn't quite as bad as the bleed valve was blocked by a bit of paint stuck in there which is why i opened it so far in the first place!

If you've lost loads of water from the heating system you likely need to add some more central heating protector (chemical) to restore it's level of concentration - though you should always add the same type of protector that is already in the system (or at least that's what the manufacturer's would have us believe - not sure of the validity of this one!).

Incidentally, anyone know where i can get that new Magnaclean Twintech yet as i'm still looking to buy one.

Andy

Good evening: The OH has been powerflushing central heating systems since the machine first became commercially available almost 10 years ago ( and installing CH systems for over 30 years) and has yet to experience pipework/valve/radiator failure as a result...mind you, he conducts a thorough site survey first, doesn't rush the job or use the more corrosive CH cleaner/sludge removers on the market..... some installers will use the 'possibility' to justify a quicker install/more profit and the customer ends up with a new boiler on a filthy system with the possibility of the warranty becoming void. As for the hot flush...I assume this is because hot water improves the cleansing action i.e. aids dissolution/allow water to carry more nasty particles out of the system and removes flux particles which can pinhole the rads...more here. If an installer follows the relevant British Standard i.e.BS 7593:2006 Code of practice for treatment of water in domestic hot water central heating systems (available to view online via the local library) and the MIs the result should be a healthy central heating system and a satisfied customer.

Re: The Twin Tech...available at plumbers merchants eg. Plumb Center at Pyson's etal.

HTH

Canucklehead

[andrew-b]

Originally Posted by Canucklehead

Re: The Twin Tech...available at plumbers merchants eg. Plumb Center at Pyson's etal.

Thanks, I looked on all the suppliers websites linked to by the magnaclean website including plumb center and couldn't find a price on any of their websites. I'll have to use that antiquated technological innovation called the telephone and actually speak to someone to find out - yikes!

Alot of the big merchants don't seem to publicise their price lists freely on the internet to mere mortals like myself. The only place i have actually seen it listed on the internet is at fpwholesale in a brochure but it just says "POA" and they don't appear to deal with non-trade.

Andy

[lou49]

[QUOTE]Anyway, the engineer said we should ideally have a power flush ( £805) and a Magnaclean device, or at the least a Magnaclean only (£350). Before I speak to the guy who put in the new boiler in 2007, please could I get some advice from you experts on here? Should we really be doing this?


Update here. Managed to speak to the original engineer who installed the Vaillant boiler in summer 2007. He would charge around £500 to flush system then put on a Boiler Buddy. He told me (but perhaps I misunderstood) that the system has to be drained down before the Boiler Buddy goes on, whole thing takes about a day. He will call me later about it. Problem is I think that our system is about 23 years old. It definitely isn't as hot as it should be (notice it now as weather is so cold) and some of the rads are not up to speed, heatwise, I think. Have not had this problem before..
Anyway, thanks for all the advice! Think we may have to do this though if the system is showing its age.
Louise

[Canucklehead]

Good afternoon: You need to get another quote or two. If you decide to use the original installer get him to knock down that price...after all, he is responsible for the shoddy boiler installation in the first place .

HTH

Canucklehead

[lou49]

Hi Canucklehead. Thanks but am very confused! Boiler is Ecotec Plus 428 -wall hung open vent condensing boiler. Why do you think that it was shoddily installed? The original engineer who installed this did flush the system. I think his rough quote on the phone today was based on the work that the BG engineer said needed doing, to keep our aging system up to scratch. The reason that the BG engineer was suggesting the power flush was because some of the water that came out of the kitchen rad yesterday was rather sludgy - but only a little bit.
Feeling somewhat muddled here! I suppose I could have the original engineer just install a Boiler Buddy?
Thanks...Louise

[Razor]

I think I would be a bit embarrassed to charge another £500 for what should have been done in the first place, unless he advised you to have one at the time?

In your situation I would probably get a magnaclean fitted at the same time get the system dosed with x200 cleaner or similar and get the installer to show you how to clean the filter in the magnaclean. Arrange for the fitter to return after a month or so drain down and add inhibitor total cost around £200 inc materials.

BTW though it is true about the times BG allow for a PF most subcontractors will take longer because we can't afford to get callbacks.

[heating-eng]

magnaclean twin ............. ,

[savemoney]

Hey heating-eng still aint got my boiler fixed. Had a new sensor in combi due to hot water going cold. Put new sensor in thought it fixed problem but now CH is occasionally dicky and although the wireless thermostat sends signal to boiler it occasionally doesn't kick on

Been dicky since mid december.

[heating-eng]

Originally Posted by savemoney

Hey heating-eng still aint got my boiler fixed. Had a new sensor in combi due to hot water going cold. Put new sensor in thought it fixed problem but now CH is occasionally dicky and although the wireless thermostat sends signal to boiler it occasionally doesn't kick on

Been dicky since mid december.

i would get the gas board to fix it then if anything else goes wrong you would be covered.

or any of the others n power etc . . .
.

[FLINT]

Hi there, we have just had a complete new CH system fitted to take advantage of the goverment scrappage scheme. Anyway I have just had a look at my receipts for all my materials used and the Magnaclean cost me £85 plus vat from a local plumbers merchants. Not too sure about cost of powerflushing as we had new pipes aswell but I do know that what others above are saying is correct and to do it properly should take a full day.