Powerflush and Central Heating overhaul

Radarjet

I live in an old house which was previously owned by generations of the local village plumber so bits have been added on ad hoc over the years and nothing is standard.

It has 2 boilers, each servicing 8 radiators. One does the front of the house and the other does all the back of the house.

I’ve not really looked after the heating system at all, it’s just worked and every day I am grateful that it fires up, albeit with lots of cold patches and endless gurgles.

I did have the boilers serviced regularly until the chap told me that the front boiler needed to be changed urgently as it was 30+ years old and was on its last legs, which was about 6 years ago. Since then I have not had it serviced out of fear that it might have been formally condemned and I haven’t had the money to replace it until now, so I simply flicked the switch each winter evening and crossed my fingers but neither boiler have missed a beat.

I decided that it was now time to address this issue ( scrappage discount and all that) and have read a bit and decided that if the boilers needed replacing it would be prudent to get the systems fully powerflushed first so I started getting in quotes plus booked BG to review the CH system…
These quotes started at about £350 until I mentioned 2 boilers when invariably the quote doubled and in some cases went up more because of the age. Some people were quite arrogant with me and one even said I couldn’t possibly have 2 boilers in a 4/5 bed house and did I know what I was looking at.

Anyway, I eventually stumbled across Bob Jones at Powerflushuk via Google who wasn’t in the least bothered about the 2 boilers as he had 2 systems he would send out with the men to do the job and quoted £384 plus VAT for the lot. He was most reassuring that all would be ok, so I booked him and the day dawned which, following a. change of date with BG was the same day.

Promptly at 8, Bob’s son and a colleague turned up and set to work. There were various small glitches of corroded valves etc but they overcame these and soon out flowed gallons and gallons of the truly filthy stuff- I’ve been here 14 years and GOK how long previous to that it had not been drained for, never mind cleaned.

Then there arose quite a discussion between the 2 men and it turned out that one of my feeder tanks was more rust than metal and neither of them wanted to clean the system, stick chemicals in and run the risk of causing a hole, plus not wanting to connect up a clean system to a filthy tank, so I took one of them to a local plumbers merchants and for the princely sum of £18.74 we came back with the bits and a new tank was installed – I didn’t buy an actual tank- that appeared out of the van.

They were nearing wrapping up when BG turned up for the CH review and far from being derisive about me using another company he commended my decision and said that they had done a more thorough job then they would have done themselves pre boiler change. The Powerflush team showed BG round the system and where the pipes went etc which was extremely helpful as it is a rabbit warren under floorboards.

The Powerflush team of Ben and Max left at about 3.30 having worked all day without a break – just copious cups of tea.

I paid £450 total for the PF plus an extremely reasonable amount for the tank change. I also notice that I have several new gleaming brass bits on the boilers which presumably are new valves or something but I wasn’t asked to pay extra for any of those.

BG agreed that both boilers were scrappage eligible but didn’t know if he could do 2 in one house.

He agreed it would be wise to keep the 2 systems rather than try to amalgamate it into 1 new hefty boiler as the pipe work would be a huge job. It seems that some extra work needs doing as currently when the hot water is on, one radiator in a bathroom also heats up and this is no longer allowed, the CH and HW systems have to be totally independent of each other ?
Also I have a ribbed hot water tank, which needs changing. I didn’t gather why but guess if it is as old as the rest, perhaps that is more rust than metal too, although we have clear bath water.

Plus he didn’t condemn the oldest boiler, just checked the carbon monoxide thing I have next to it and that the airbrick was visible and asked if anyone ever sat in that room which they don’t.. Bonus !!

I await his quote with trepidation and will then probably get a couple of alternative quotes along the same lines

All in all I had a really good experience with both the Powerflush team and BG.

I was really very pleased with the outcome of the Powerflush and last night I had a house that warmed up distinctly quicker than usual and no noise.

If anyone is umming and arring about spending the extra money pre boiler change, personally I think it is worth having it done to know that the system is in as good a nick as possible and I’ve heard that the certificate provided to prove the PF has been done is a great help in upholding the new boilers warranty should anything go wrong with it early on.

barginunter

We had our 13 year old boiler power-flushed by BG and a magna-clean installed (which captures the swarf from the system). We paid around £500 but BG said they could get parts for our boiler for about another 8 years and the boiler should last til then. The system is now more efficient and the rad valves all work.
I'm curious as to why you now want to scrap those old but fabulous boilers you have now probably restored via the pflush. New boilers are not cheap especially from British Gas and you'll probably be lucky to get 10 years out of them - nothing lasts these days.
Gas regs change all the time but if you're not actually changing anything, even if you don't adhere to the new regs, you probably won't have to do anything to bring them in line thus saving money.