Central Heating Issues - Rad water looks 'creamy' could this be a blockage?

[GeddyMortgage]

Setup - Worcester Greenstar 8000 system boiler, CH Only, powers 14 radiators, and no hot water (that's powered from another boiler)


Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some help diagnosing (and maybe solving!) an issue i'm finding with our CH system. These are the main symptoms i'm noticing:-

:- One radiator (#14) furthest from the boiler I cant get to warm up, despite many attempts balancing. (flow pipe is hot, return pipe cold)

:- I seem to get inconsistencies with which rads get hot / warm when I put the heating on. Like one day radiator #6 will get piping, another day only quite hot. Though rad 14 is always consistently cold. This happens without me balancing between the heating being on and left me scratching my head!

:- I notice odd sounding flowing noises coming from the rads occasionally, i'll link a video below on this post.


When bleeding the radiator #14 today, I noticed the water coming out of the rad was really quite creamy / murky. See the link below. Could this be evidence of a blockage? I've checked and all the rads on this CH system have the same creamy water. Though the boiler was serviced super recently and the engineer said the magfilter looked absolutely fine....Does anyone know what's going on here?! Should I be concerned by this water?!

Lastly, worth noting that The boiler, radiators and pipework are all pretty-darn-new. All installed together about a year ago bar the towel radiator, that was on the old system and now on this system. But even then id say it's only 3yrs old tops.

Images and video of the murky water from the rads.



Video of Murky Rad Water


And lastly, a video of the noise I mentioned above, I noticed this coming from the rad closest to the boiler maybe a couple minutes after I did the bleeding video above on a different radiator. Anyone know what this sound could mean? Could it mean a blockage? Again really appreciate any light shed here.

Vid Of Rad Weird Noises


thanks so much,

Geddy

 

[cross thread]

System boiler so probably a sealed system ?
Has it ever worked ?

 

[GeddyMortgage]

System boiler so probably a sealed system ?
Has it ever worked ?

Sealed as in all the stuff is inside the boiler, pump, expansion vessel etc? In that case yeah.

Nothing external on this other than the magnafilter, and hive control box to activate the boiler. Has no valves or diverters or bypasses external either, just 28mm flow and return for the first 1.5Meters, then down to 22mm for ages, then 15mm for the last meter to the rads.

It has worked and it's still working, just those symptoms above have got me concerned and wondering what they could be pointing to and if i need to take action.

 

[fixitflav]

Images and video of the murky water from the rads.

Dunno about the other problems, but I don't think the colour is anything to worry about, system water is never going to be cryseal clear. You could do a bright wire nail test to check the inhibitor is up to strength.

 

[GeddyMortgage]

Dunno about the other problems, but I don't think the colour is anything to worry about, system water is never going to be cryseal clear. You could do a bright wire nail test to check the inhibitor is up to strength.

Yeah i'm starting to think maybe it's just inhibitor or chemicals in the water from a recent service or something? It was serviced a week ago, though frustratingly i never tried bleeding into a container before then so can't compare.

though interestingly, other CH circuit we have in the house for the upstairs (diff pipe work, diff boiler) when I bleed the rads that that boiler powers, the water is alot clearer. And those rads are wayyy older. (that CH system is working flawlessly btw).

Update with regards to the other symptoms

:-One radiator (#14) furthest from the boiler I cant get to warm up, despite many attempts balancing. (flow pipe is hot, return pipe cold)

Someone suggested turning the TRV's off to all the other rads to see if rad #14 got hot. I did, and it did. Pretty much as soon as I turned off the rad just before it. So I'm guessing that's a balancing issue I just need to keep going at.


:- I notice odd sounding flowing noises coming from the rads occasionally, i'll link a video below on this post.

I'll link a compiled video below of all the noise issues, i'm getting odd trickling/squelching/whooshing noises from 3 rads in particular, the others seem fine. I can reproduce the noises pretty well by turning the TRV's off for all rads (bar the towel radiator that functions as my bypass). then turning either of the 3 noisy ones up to full on the TRV. Still wondering if that's the sound of crap in the system or something else? what do people think of these?


RAD NOISES VIDEO


thanks for all the help so far. Hoping someone has an idea!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I'll link a compiled video below of all the noise issues, i'm getting odd trickling/squelching/whooshing noises from 3 rads in particular, the others seem fine. I can reproduce the noises pretty well by turning the TRV's off for all rads (bar the towel radiator that functions as my bypass). then turning either of the 3 noisy ones up to full on the TRV. Still wondering if that's the sound of crap in the system or something else? what do people think of these?

If it's recently been serviced, possibly drained, or partially - then it could be air, still making it's way around and through the system.

 

[GeddyMortgage]

If it's recently been serviced, possibly drained, or partially - then it could be air, still making it's way around and through the system.

Well funny you should say that. I did notice some very weird spluttering and spitting when I was bleeding earlier. 13 of the rads bled no problem whatsoever.

Rad #2 and my towel radiator (bypass) though, really felt like lots of air was coming out at the same time as the water, if that makes sense? Maybe im going crazy.

I video'd it anyway, let me know what you think. :- Rad Bleeding Spluttering

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I video'd it anyway, let me know what you think. :- Rad Bleeding Spluttering

Did you bleed it with the circulation pump in operation?

 

[GeddyMortgage]

It’s a system boiler and it was ON when I bled it yeah. So assume pump was on full whack.

I read somewhere to force the air out, turn all the other rads TRV’s off and turn one on at a time and bleed individually. That’s what I was doing in the vid above

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

It’s a system boiler and it was ON when I bled it yeah. So assume pump was on full whack.

I read somewhere to force the air out, turn all the other rads TRV’s off and turn one on at a time and bleed individually. That’s what I was doing in the vid above

So - likely the water was churning inside the rad, which explains what you experienced. Bleed the rads when the pump is not running.

 

[GeddyMortgage]

So - likely the water was churning inside the rad, which explains what you experienced. Bleed the rads when the pump is not running.

Will do. On the videos above do you think the noises could be attributable to air in the system? Is it weird that it’s only happening on some rads and not others?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Will do. On the videos above do you think the noises could be attributable to air in the system? Is it weird that it’s only happening on some rads and not others?

Where and how much air collects in a system depends on the design of the system and pipework. On my system, most of the air collects in the bathroom rad. I have to bleed it a few times, after the system is refilled, where the other ones are fine.

 

[GeddyMortgage]

Where and how much air collects in a system depends on the design of the system and pipework. On my system, most of the air collects in the bathroom rad. I have to bleed it a few times, after the system is refilled, where the other ones are fine.

Fair enough. But do you get the weird noises I’m getting too? Listening to the videos back it does sound like a squelching and splatting. Could air in the system be the cause of that?

This one -