Sludge in my water pipes-Reasonable quote?

babyontheway

Just a quickie!

We have recently moved and have joined the British Gas homecare package.

The guy came round today to assess our boiler and do a service which is included. Our boiler is about 20 years old but is simple and they can get the parts so they have accepted it onto the scheme. He reckons it could go for another 5 years or so.

He also looked at the water pipes and said there is a build-up of sludge in them. This is not covered by the scheme. He said we don't need to rush to do anything about it but over the next year or so we should get them cleared out as if it backs up it could damage the system. The British Gas quote was for £600.

We live in a 3-bed terrace with 6 radiators.

Question is this:
1. Is this a reasonable quote
2. If not, how much roughly should I be looking to pay?
3. Just checking but I assume that this is something a plumber can do and doesn't require CORGI registration or anything?

Expertise would be greatly appreciated!

Dave_save

This is a time consuming job for anyone. You don't have to be Gas Safe registered to clean a central heating system, but you do have to have some knowledge of how the system works in order to clean it effectively.

Usually this is done by power flushing the whole system, each radiator and pipe section in turn, using a cleaning agent, and then flushed and refilled with an inhibitor. This is a long process using pumped water, and can take 2 full days to complete depending on the system size.

On completion the whole system has to be rebalanced.

You can get this done cheaper, I've heard of figures of between £400 and £800.

I'm no plumber, but I cleaned mine myself, by taking off each radiator and flushing through with a hosepipe. Messy job, took me a week, but cost me only £40 for the chemicals.

Premier_2

Time consuming yes, but I did mine myself and it took less than 8 hours.
A lot of the time is waiting for the system to drain.

Even allowing for the total of £20 -£30 of chemicals (£10-£15 cleaner & £10-£15 inhibitor), £600 is outrageous.

Get some quotes from a local plumber if you are not happy doing this yourself.

babyontheway

Thanks guys. We have a guy who has done a bit of work for us already so we were going to ask him for a quote but it's good to know a ballpark figure before we start!