Another heating question…sorry.

Our heating is playing up – radiators hot upstairs but cold downstairs.

We had a new pump last week and that helped a bit. I've just taken some water out of the radiator and its a murky brown colour (I know it shouldn't be).

Is getting the heating experts in for some sort of chemical flush or is it worth trying a draining and refilling it myself?

Any opinions welcome. Ta

See the thread from yesterday on colonic irrigation. It has to be exactly the same process……..

niiiiiice! Not one to try myself then!

You could shove a bottle of sludge remover through (Sentinel X400 I think) leave it in for a couple of weeks and see if that helps. From memory it's safe to leave in for a while – then you need to drop it out before filling back up and sticking some inhibitor in.

Might be worth trying to balance all the radiators? Or turn the pump up?

I'm no expert mind, i'm sure there will be some proper plumbers along in a minute with better/more well informed advice!

You could shove a bottle of sludge remover through (Sentinel X400 I think) leave it in for a couple of weeks and see if that helps. From memory it's safe to leave in for a while – then you need to drop it out before filling back up and sticking some inhibitor in.

Might be worth trying to balance all the radiators? Or turn the pump up?

I'm no expert mind, i'm sure there will be some proper plumbers along in a minute with better/more well informed advice!

Or you could flush it

you could try turning off the rads that are working. it may shift any air in the pipes if downstairs is drop fed.

had problems with the heating a couple of years ago and couldn't get a plumber to come out and look at it – around here they seem to like large jobs and/or working for the wrinklies who'll pay over the odds for work. I treid the chemical flush, takign radiators off and using a hose to clean them out. Eventually got a guy off internet to come and flush the system on a "if I can't fix it you don't pay" deal – in the end he had to replace a blocked pipe (caused by bad design of system) and also power flushed the system for the agreed fixed price.

System is great now but it was the blocked pipe that was causing the problem but the power flush certainly cleaned it all out. You can hire the equipment yourself – it's not a hard job to do if you tackle it methodically.

Bloke I used

I flushed mine myself (something like below – ie time to do it again)

A couple of fernox/furnux products.
Flusher/cleanser/sludge remover (Sentinel above rang a bell) – fill into system and run for 8 hrs *read the destructions
then drain/flush with water till clear
then add with correct amount inhibitor

As all my rads had drain cocks I just used a hose to drain down.

(*have you tried balancing – ie on one side should be a flow valve – slow the flow to rads thta get hot quickly, increase flow to rads thta are cold.

(*also presumably you've bled etc etc)