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Our house is just 20 years old. I've already had to replace 2 rads because they rusted through and had pinhole leaks. Had the boiler serviced today and there was a huge amount of rust on the MagnaClean filter. Should I just get it powerflushed and hope for the best or bite the bullet and have all the rads replaced?
Reply for visibility
Our house was built in 95 and not replaced and rads yet.
(Famous last words)
Treat the symptom not the cause. I’d want to know why, sounds like air in the system from somewhere or lack of inhibitor.
'75, still original.
What sort of system is it? Pressurised or atmospheric? I'm wondering if it's open to the atmosphere with the tank topped up automatically via a float valve. Then has a small leak which over time dilutes the corrosion inhibitor.
Ours leaks somewhere out of sight, I have to top it up every ~10 days. And add a litre of corrosion inhibitor each autumn.
25 years here and all OK - what system - open (boiler and tank) or combi ?
I've regularly topped up the anti-corrosion and kettling solutions, especially after removing a rad and a leak (had a pin hole in a copper pipe about 7 years ago) - cold water feed but we ended having the heating drained.
It's a pressurised system, not a combi. Needs a slight top-up every 4-6 months. It was drained and flushed about 4 years ago when a new boiler was fitted, and drained again a few months back when a new cylinder was fitted. Filled with inhibitor both times. I've found stuff online that gives expected radiator life as 15-20 years, but that's from people who want to sell me radiators.
Our house is about 20yrs old and the only issue we have are the 2 towel radiators which need replacing as they are rusting inside and out. Been trying to get our plumber to do it for about 12 months but lock down not helping.
Our towel radiator went after about 8 years. The rest must be 20 years old without issue
20 years in my flat and never had a leak or something like that.
Rust requires oxygen, (Fe + O) so look for air leakage?
Replaced the last of mine last year (18 years old), had a few leak from corrosion, and had a few of the original TRVs fall apart due to rust. Got the TRVs free with radiators through Screwfix. Also beat painting the radiators when decorating. I'm fairly handy though and did it myself, depends on how well they were installed, mine were badly installed, no PTFE tape and nuts tightened so much olives had welded to pipes and the diameter of some pipes were 4mm smaller than they should be. My guess is the older the radiator the more metal in the radiator, the longer it will last.
Our house is just 20 years old. I’ve already had to replace 2 rads because they rusted through and had pinhole leaks.
If you treat the water with an inhibitor they will last longer, should last decades.
https://fernox.com/product/protector-f1-500ml/
Ref: powerflushing. AIUI won't solve corrosion, it's just washing out all the precipitated corrosion. I took all our radiators out when we moved in, both to jetwash them out, fit TRV's and make it easier to paint them. There can be a lot of gunk in there! But it's stopping them from getting hot, not corroding them.
no PTFE tape and nuts tightened so much olives had welded to pipes
The universal sign of a bodge, PTFE tape on a compression joint (unless you were talking about two separate things).
If you treat the water with an inhibitor they will last longer, should last decades.
The system has inhibitor in it.
Ref: powerflushing. AIUI won’t solve corrosion, it’s just washing out all the precipitated corrosion
Obvs.
I guess I really have 2 questions:
1: Are the suppliers right in saying that expected life is 20 years? At the moment most of you are saying that they should last longer, but @stumpyjon has already had to replace his before the 20 year mark and Google suggests 15-20 years max.
2: If so, is there any point in powerflushing a set of 20 year old radiators or should they just be replaced, given that powerflushing 14 radiators would not be cheap in itself?
Does water hardness play a part here? ie a harder water area might kill rads quicker?
In or previous hose, the radiators were over 30 years old and they were not a problem.
I’ve already had to replace 2 rads because they rusted through and had pinhole leaks.
The system has inhibitor in it.
I would suggest adding some more inhibitor or using a better make as it's obviously not working as intended. NB if you have a leak all the inhibitor will slowly be dilluted to nothing as the water changes.
If they're left out on your drive about a day .
I think inhibitor in the system from new would have helped (it's in there now, probably needs topping up).
PTFE tape around the threads on the compression joints, when we moved in (new build) many of the radiators were weeping, the plumber just returned with a bigger set of stillsons which only resulted in crushed olives and deformed pipe. I always use PTFE tape around threaded joints, don't have a problem with leaks or over tightened joints.
A compression joint is not a threaded joint
Pfte tape is for thread forms where the thread is the seal .
The olive is the seal in a compression joint.
PTFE has no place there.
Mark of a bodger