Power Flushing and Descaling

Power flushing and Descaling for Central Heating Systems

Give your central heating a new lease of life with a Kamco Power Flush. Call Avon and Wiltshire Heating for competitive rates fro central heating Power flushing and rest assured a first class powerflushing job will be carried out 1st time every time.

What is a Power Flush?

A Power Flush is the process which central heating systems are cleansed from sludge and debris of rust by using a Power flush pump with a chemical agent. The Power Flush pump and magnetic filter is connected to your central heating pipe work and water is pumped through the system at high velocity, dislodging and moving the sludge out of the system. The Power Flush process is repeated until the system is clean.

Do the following boiler symptoms sound familiar?

• The boiler is noisy
• The radiators and other parts of the heating system are leaking
• It takes a long time for the heating system to warm up
• The radiators have cool or cold spots at the bottom and in the middle
• Radiators need regular bleeding of accumulated air and show evidence of black sludge 
• Boiler pump and boiler part failures.
• Noisy central heating pipes due to restrictions 
• Central heating boiler cutting out due to damaged or blocked boiler pump
• Loud banging noises from boiler 
• Blocked pipes and valves due to sludge or lime scale

Power Flush Gets Results!

• More efficient boiler system
• Up to 25% saving on fuel bills 
• Better heating circulation
• Efficient radiators
• Radiators have faster heat up 
• Rust protection 
• Lime scale protection 
• Quieter heating system 

Central Heating Systems Blocked by Sludge

If you are spending a large sum of money upgrading to a new ‘High Efficiency Condensing Boiler’ power flushing is essential. These boilers cannot fulfil their potential of up to 91.3% efficiency with a system full of sludge! Sludge will reduce the performance of your system by between 5 and 15%. During 2006 Power flushing became a regulatory part of the upgrade process. 

The Problem
Central Heating Systems corrode internally, when air is in the system, producing black iron oxide sludge deposits in radiators and other iron components. These particles stick to all surfaces, causing premature failure of pumps and valves, cold radiators, blocked boiler heat exchangers and hot water heating coils. Overall system efficiency is greatly reduced and fuel wasted.

The Solution and Long Term Protection - Powerflush
Connect Powerflush machine to central heating system pipe work by either removing the central heating pump or a radiator. Flush the whole system without removing any additional radiators.

Powerflush machine set up so water flows into the radiators, boiler and cylinder coil and back into the machine, collecting all the iron oxide sludge.

Rust remover chemical (normally phosphoric acid based, an ingredient in Cola drinks and why a rusty coin is cleaned by Cola) is added and boiler turned on.

By concentrating flow through individual radiators and vibrating the radiators the rust and sludge spots are removed. One by one radiator, heating coils and all pipe work are flushed with clean water until water runs clean.

Small amount of Neutraliser is added to compensate for residual chemical cleaner, then corrosion Inhibitor is added and circulated throughout the system.

The Powerflush machine is removed and central heating system reinstated. Heating is turned on and the radiators are balanced to optimise system efficiency.

Warning - Fitting a New Boiler to Existing Central Heating
Modern efficient boilers have much smaller components than traditional boiler designs (passageway diameter in boiler heat boiler exchangers used to be up to 1cm and can now be 1mm). This means boilers are very sensitive to anything that could cause a blockage. If a boiler failure occurs where sludge or debris is found present the boiler manufacturer’s warranty will usually be cancelled.

The Industry Standards for new boilers
All new systems should be pre-commission cleansed as per BS7593 and Benchmark. This ensures flux residues, excess jointing compounds, mineral oil and other contaminants that can be found in the system following installation, and that can affect the performance of the system or cause component failure, are removed. It is important when installing new boilers into old systems that all sludge is first removed from the system or this could accumulate in the new boiler and lead to premature failure.

Hot Water Problems with a Combination Boiler 

The Problem - Lime scale

Hard water contains calcium and magnesium ions and when hard water is heated these salts form as hard scale inside hot water appliances and adjoining pipe-work. The build up of scale will continue as more and more calcium is deposited and will this lead to blocked hot water heat exchangers in Combination Boilers and restrict the flow of water from the hot taps.

The Solution – Descale

By connecting the Powerflush machine to the combination boiler mains inlet and hot outlet. Adding Descaling chemicals to Powerflush machine tank and circulate through the boiler. Boiler fires, heating descaling chemical and the flow direction is repeatedly changed to maximize cleaning action. The blockage (lime scale) dissolves and produces CO2 which appears as foamy bubbles in the Powerflush machine tank therefore when no further CO2 is produced the Lime scale has been removed.

Avon & Wiltshire heating services are fully qualified in descaling boilers and pipe work, and specialize in descaling Combination Boilers and Powermax Boilers with excellent results.

Call Avon and Wiltshire Heating for a competitive quote for your power flushing and descaling.
Power flushing services cover Bath, Swindon, Trowbridge, Chippenham, Calne, Devizes, Corsham, Melksham and surrounding areas in Wiltshire.