My radiator bleeding skills are not enough....

[BR14]

A good blowthrough will do you the world of good.

[Hobosapien]

Replace the worst offenders and move the hot ones to places you need them most. The remaining poor ones can be moved to rooms you rarely use or don't need much heating, rebalancing the system from a use case point of view. Sorted.

Then if still not good enough, check pipes for blockages. If it's all push fit you may be able to pull the pipes off and run a pipe cleaner through them. Those chimney sweeps must have moved onto this service or is it a gap in the market? Nice little plan B.

[northernladuk]

Find me a plumber that will replace 15+ radiators for 600 quid and I will.

[washed up contractor]

600 quid for a flush!? You'd be better off putting new radiators in instead of the ones that do not get hot then adding some inhibitor,

A flush does not get rid of all the crap in the system, it just gets rid of that near the outlet, distributes more of the remaining crap into the other radiators and probably gums up your pump. Not for me, Jeff.

[madame SasGuru]

So I've bled the radiators to within an inch of their life but still irks me that some get hot much faster than others and from the top down etc so I'm considering having one of these power flushes down. They quote 300-600 for the job.

Anyone had this done recently and did it work. I am assuming when they say power flush it isn't at higher pressures that could affect the joints etc?

What would FLC do in my situation?

You are a contractor - just pay a plumber to replace the radiators - modern ones are so much more efficient.

[Uncle Albert]

The power flush we had done about 10 years ago was the best value I have ever had from a plumber. It completely changed the house from never getting warm to having to turn the heating off. The radiators were quite old though so if yours are new then it might not have the same effect for you.

[billybiro]

So I've bled the radiators to within an inch of their life but still irks me that some get hot much faster than others and from the top down etc so I'm considering having one of these power flushes down. They quote 300-600 for the job.

Anyone had this done recently and did it work. I am assuming when they say power flush it isn't at higher pressures that could affect the joints etc?

What would FLC do in my situation?

Have you asked your accountant?

[xoggoth]

I'm just too old school to think pushing something on beats sweating away with compression and soldering joints

Heard same comment from competent plumbers.

Got hot air heating meself. Beats me why this is out of fashion in the UK. Heats the house very quickly and is highly efficient.

[northernladuk]

If they are all getting hot at the top, no bleeding is necessary.
What you might find is that your system needs balancing. Have you adjusted the outlet valves on any of your rads?

To be fair I've tried to avoid that. Haven't adjusted them since we moved in and I checked everything was OK. We've quite a few radiators over a longish distance so something I didn't really want to get in to. That was 3rd on my list after bleeding and flushing to be honest.

[northernladuk]

Addendum: we later found out that the previous owners were too cheap to solder most of the joints so used compression fit joints for some new radiators they had had installed. Given these are 25+ years old mechanical fittings that were inaccessible under the floorboards, a leak during a sludge-clearing power flush would have been highly undesirable!

Ours is a recent renovation (in the last 8 years) and everything is push fit and plastic piping. I'm just not convinced with the push fit marlarky which is the worry. Guess it must do the job as it seems to be that standard nowadays. I'm just too old school to think pushing something on beats sweating away with compression and soldering joints.

I think for peace of mind if nothing else I'll give it a go.

[fibio]

Had our heating system power-flushed a few years ago and so much sludge (mostly rust) came out that they ended up running it twice as the cleaning magnet got so full.

The biggest improvement is that the house heats up a lot faster as the radiators get warmer much quicker. I didn't have the hot-at-top but cold-at-bottom issue you describe, but would recommend getting the system cleaned out.

I have no idea what pressure they used (combi boilers are a pressurised system anyway and usually rated up to 3 bar working pressure). We didn't have any leaks afterwards.

Addendum: we later found out that the previous owners were too cheap to solder most of the joints so used compression fit joints for some new radiators they had had installed. Given these are 25+ years old mechanical fittings that were inaccessible under the floorboards, a leak during a sludge-clearing power flush would have been highly undesirable!

[WTFH]

If they are all getting hot at the top, no bleeding is necessary.
What you might find is that your system needs balancing. Have you adjusted the outlet valves on any of your rads?

There's a few guys on benches round here who could help. I'm happy to represent them to you for a mere 50%

[northernladuk]

So I've bled the radiators to within an inch of their life but still irks me that some get hot much faster than others and from the top down etc so I'm considering having one of these power flushes down. They quote 300-600 for the job.

Anyone had this done recently and did it work. I am assuming when they say power flush it isn't at higher pressures that could affect the joints etc?

What would FLC do in my situation?