Cleaning out cenrtal heating system

Annie Apple1

Hi there i was wondering if any one can help me.Just got a chemical put into my heating system as rads were not heating properly.Not sure if i can mention name of chemical.Anyway after this was put in the water in the hot taps have turned yellow,i have run the water forthe last day and its still the same. Plumber who did the job said it may be because there is a lot of rust in the system or there may be a leak in the cylnder and i may now need a new cylnder. He said to leave for a few days to see how things go. Is this normal to have yellow water from taps after flushing heating system. Any help would be great.

ART6

Since there is no direct connection between the water in the heating system and that in the hot water tank, there should be no way of getting the chemical in the hot water circuit. If there's a leak somewhere between the two, it would have to be in the hot water cylinder, but I would have thought you would have noticed that before since your hot water would be bitter tasting and dark rust stained. In addition, if you have a pressurised heating system, the pressure would keep dropping to zero and the system wouldn't work properly. Maybe that's why you rads didn't heat up as expected. Alternatively the plumber (??) might have put the chemical in the wrong circuit!

Whatever, if you do have a leak, then waiting for a few days to see if the colour in your hot water clears will not be solving any problems, and to tell you to wait and see is sheer carelessness. Leakage from the heating circuit into the hot water means that the heating system is continuously being refilled with oxygenated water, which will rapidly rust your radiators from the inside out.

PeteHeat

Hi,

I agree with Art 6, something is very wrong if the chemical has entered your hot water system.

I would also be very concerned at the plumbers (?????) attitude because as Art 6 pointed out the heating and water circuits are seperate.

I recommend that you have this looked at, you may need to have the plumbing system flushed, depending on the chemicals added.

.

darcy.jonny

firstly ur right in saying that the heating a water systems have no connection .

but before ild start going at the cylinder , get up into you attic with the heating running . see if there is a small water tank beside the normal big one . ive seen on many many occasions the heating tank placed above the storage tank and the overflow just put into the storage tank .

also the expansion of the heating could be put directly into to storage tank when the heating is cleansed now and again the imcreased flow rate will cause the heating to "spill over " can be easily fixed by adjusting the circulating pump

and dont forget ive seen first hand a lad cleaning a heating system and pour the contents of the header tank directly into the storage tank . all of these would explain your problem if the cold water was discoloured as well as the hot . but hot on its own could very well be the heating coil in the cylinder .

slavetothegrind

Mr Jonny he speak the truth!

Mucho good advice!

We should have a thread on here with pictures of plumbing disasters, god knows i've seen a few!

There's some on this site, and some half decent advice,

http://www.clubi.ie/plumbing-heating/

crosstownk

Do you know where the plumber added this chemical?

darcy.johnny wrote:

hot on its own could very well be the heating coil in the cylinder

Agreed. It sounds possible that the coil in the hot water cylinder is leaking and causing the central heating water to mix with your domestic hot water.

Locate the pressure gauge (should be near the boiler) and see if what reads and report back.

darcy.jonny

all good advice here but before you take any further action make sure its not affecting the cold water . (not from kitchen sink)

people tend to build up hot water in the bath etc. and just run the cold tap

also depending on the age of ur house and perhaps it being an ex council house . you could have direct feed mains water to all cold taps,wc , etc this would trow the heating coil idea off .

do you have the bottle from the chemical added to the system what name is on it fernox etc. readinf the back there is instructions for use most of the affective chemicals take two weeks to 12 weeks to work correctly , the one that claim 3-4 hours etc are useless and due to the consentration not being much higher than the others .

and further more if your system has been chemically cleaned , the plumber should have put a second chemical into the system...... an anti corosive called inhibitor , which if its a gas fired ststem is a legal requirement under board gas is813 .

im thinking you were taken for a mug to be honest .