Commercial Powerflsuh

[collinspk]

Hi,

Can anyone give me some advice, I have been asked to replace TRVs on an Commerical Office Building. This is not a major job, but I know the system needs a Powerflush. We only have a Domestic Machine - which will not be man enough for the job. I dont want to buy a machine just for one job. Any ideas who does this sort of flush? There is 1.5 inch Flow and Retrun in Steel. Each rad Tees of in 15mm Copper.

Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Paul.

[thescruff]

Your not allowed to mention Powerflush, have bg after your blood.

Anyways! your domestic "Powerflusher" should be ok if you do it right.

Turn all the rads off and open them one at a time waiting for the water to go black and then clear between each one.

We don't have 1.5inch pipe in the commercial plumbing trade, its 11/2" or 40mm.

You can hire them from most good renta centers.

scruff

[Chris]

Kamco make machines with different head pumps, intended for different sized buildings. Their standard machine is 1.5 bar or so which might not be enough to get circulation in a tall building if the system was empty. No problem if it's full of course. Their "next up" machine is about 3 bar I believe (as are some other pumps such as Fernox's) - they call it "The Beast". I reckon it would be worth talking to them, as well as manufacturers of whatever machines you're able to hire.

Speed of the water won't be huge with big pipes of course, but as long as there's circulation then systems seem to improve a lot. A good water main is a very useful resource where the black stuff takes time to shift!

I saw my neighbour dragging some very old 2" hoses from his garage, for dumping. Turned out his father used them for flushing council blocks, with a petrol driven pump mounted on a pick up truck! That was from the 50's on. Not much new, eh?

[d_paterson]

Hi, This post is ask a question on the topic not an answer sorry.

How risky is said power flush?

Would a plan be to add X.400 CH cleaner - leave for a week or so and then increase the pressure?

Afterwards add X.100 CH inhibiter when finished. Or is this really for a pro?

Background why i'm thinking about a PF...
I've just added a radiator and it's taken over an hour to re-fill the CH system (it's open). I'm not even sure the top rad is actually full. Many times during the refill i could take the bleed valve out and it still seemed as if no water was entering the rad. The one rad that did seem fine was one of the biggest and filled in about 2 minutes. The slowest and about half the size took about 10 minutes.

[Chris]

INcreasing the pressure (sealed system, presumably?) will do nothing. I suggest you pay a heating guy to diagnose and fix any problems. There are many reasons why your rad(s) may be slow to fill, and powerflushing needs quite a bit of knowledge.