Central Heating detergent?

ashe

Hi,

Getting two radiators replaced in the living room. Gas Engineer is quite well recommended locally - he took radiator off and it sprayed black gunk everywhere on the carpet - mrs was suitably unimpressed - luckily we are getting carpets changed soon!

he said this gunk means when they fitted the new boiler 2 years ago they didn't do a power flush and has recommended some detergent to be added at a cost of £80

When I have googled this it says some blank water can be normal and water should run clear - he didn't tighten the valve properly and it emptied the rest of system into the carpet - luckily not loads and as we are getting it replaced I just stanley-knifed it out rather than trying to dry it. I tightened the valve on the wall with my adjustable wrench and it stopped dripping, but all this water was clear rather than black and gunky.

The heating had no problems heating up - combi boiler based system, all radiators start to heat up within seconds of the system coming on, and the rads heat up top to bottom. We are only replacing these as we are doing the full room and girlfriend wants new rads...from what I've read it doesn't sound as if we need this £80 detergent, but just trying to sense check it basically! Any thoughts?

We'll be getting other rooms and rads done over time anyway so if needed we can do it on one of those being fitted?

spadoosh

It mightve had a powerflush, hard to know as the water can go black very quickly.

Its corrosion or gunk not being fully cleared from the system.

The detergent or inhibitor helps prevent corrosion inside the system. By the sounds of it, theres a certain amount already happening, presumably from older radiators/pipework.

Its a fairly simple DIY job and the product should be about £10-15 per litre. Plenty of YT videos showing how its done if you want to save yourself some money.

ashe

Cheers, yeah happy to give it a g to save some cash, looked at YT videos and doesn't seem extensively difficult, certainly not £80 worth of work.

southcoastrgi

Sounds to me like you need to get your recommendations from some other people if he managed to wreak your carpet twice

ashe

Yeah that too... we have got another plumber coming today to quote us on the replacement rads

bengalknights

Inhibitor should help with this, usually caused by corrosion and rust especially worse when you are pressurizing with new water into the pipes (or so it was explained to me by our plumber when they did ours)