# Central heating powerflush



## andy665 (Nov 1, 2005)

17 year old house, boiler always serviced annually but over last 12 months noticed an uneven heating of some radiators (hot tops, cooler at bottom) and then in Spring this year two rads stopped working completely. Replaced the TRVs and made sure the pins were working but still not working.

Got quotes from several companies for a powerflush, ranging from £200 that I thought was too cheap and raised all sorts of alarm bells to £800(British Gas. Finally settled on a local company who came out before they would quote, had a a good look around and quoted £380

Been here this morning, took the two radiators off that had stopped working and unblocked them, did another that was "patchy" in its heat and been powerflushing for an hour now - the crap coming out is incredible.

Said he will go around the system later and balance the system (restricting input flow in 1st floor rads) and will also reduce the stat on the boiler to 55 degrees as its a condenser boiler and thay work more efficiently at 55 degrees than the circa 80 degrees it was set at.

Nice to have someone doing work that clearly knows what they are doing and even if we can't afford to turn on the heating this winter we know its nice and efficient if we did


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## IvorB1H (6 mo ago)

You may experience some issues with reducing boiler flow temp if the system (Pipework and emitters) was designed on traditional heating flow and return temps such as 82/71 or 80/60 etc if it isn’t getting up to the desired temp in winter try changing that setting back (you’ll lose the gain from the boiler condensing) but it’s not uncommon that the person who sized the rads etc to have not done it properly


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## Coops (Apr 26, 2008)

andy665 said:


> Nice to have someone doing work that clearly knows what they are doing and even if we can't afford to turn on the heating this winter we know its nice and efficient if we did


This is worth so much. In one of our old houses, the boiler packed up - 3 engineers came out to try and fix it (through house insurance emergency cover), it was winter and the kids were about 4yo at the time. Countless parts were ordered but they couldn't work it out. Not sure how but someone gave me a number for their heating engineer and I spoke to him over the phone - described what the others had done, what had been ordered and he pretty much solved it over the phone. Turned up, fitted the correct part and it was working within minutes. Bargained with him on the spare parts I didn't need and got 2 years free servicing from him. Truly excellent chap.


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## andy665 (Nov 1, 2005)

Coops said:


> This is worth so much. In one of our old houses, the boiler packed up - 3 engineers came out to try and fix it (through house insurance emergency cover), it was winter and the kids were about 4yo at the time. Countless parts were ordered but they couldn't work it out. Not sure how but someone gave me a number for their heating engineer and I spoke to him over the phone - described what the others had done, what had been ordered and he pretty much solved it over the phone. Turned up, fitted the correct part and it was working within minutes. Bargained with him on the spare parts I didn't need and got 2 years free servicing from him. Truly excellent chap.


The bloke who came out has been a central heating engineer for over 35 years, described that he removes the "cold" radiators and removes any blockages from them before doing the flush. He said that most companies simply try and clear blockages with the powerflush and it rarely works. 

He said that other engineers struggle to understand how he can do a whole house flush and sort all problems out in 4-5 hours - because most others will have the pump doing the flush running for sometimes 12-16 hours trying to literally break down the blockage with water pressure - doing it the "old fashioned" way is massively quicker and more effective


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2021)

open or closed boiler.....(ie water tank in loft feeding boiler or boiler under direct pressure from mains pressure)......???


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## Teamleader 21 (May 7, 2019)

I now when we moved into this house the rads didn't heat up as much as i thought they should, turns out the boiler wasn't very efficient. Had a new fitted and all pipework etc flushed out. Saved a bit of money as i took the rads off and gave them a flush out amazing how much crap came out. The installer the finished them off and fitted a Magnetec(?). Ever since each year there's minimal crap in the system.


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