Power Flushing in Washington
Does your system actually need flushing?
A power flush is not the answer to every heating complaint, and we would rather check than sell you one. If one radiator is cold all over, that is usually a valve or trapped air and it costs very little to put right. If several are cold along the bottom, the water runs black when you bleed them, or the boiler kettles as it fires, then there is debris in the system and flushing is the fix.
We look at the system first, tell you which of the two it is, and quote a fixed price. If a chemical clean and a magnetic filter would sort it, we will say that instead.
Why Washington systems sludge up
Washington was built fast. Most of the housing came out of the new town programme from the mid 1960s onwards, so a large part of the stock across Concord, Oxclose, Sulgrave, Barmston and Blackfell went in within a couple of decades of each other, with steel radiators and open vented systems on the same pattern.
That matters because those systems corrode from the inside as a matter of course. Steel radiators and water make iron oxide, the black magnetite sludge settles in the bottom of the panels and in the low points of the pipework, and a system that has never been cleaned in forty years will be carrying a lot of it.
Two things then make it worse. Many of those houses were converted from open vented systems to sealed combis in the 2000s, which puts a modern boiler with narrow waterways onto old, dirty pipework. And a good number of the estates were plumbed in microbore, which blocks far sooner than 15mm pipe because there is less room for the debris to move through.
The result is familiar: the radiators furthest from the boiler go cold first, the heating takes longer and longer to come up to temperature, and the boiler starts making noise because it is trying to push heat through a restricted system.
What we actually do on the day
A pump goes onto the system and a cleaning chemical is circulated at high flow, with the direction reversed repeatedly so the debris is lifted rather than pushed further into a corner. Each radiator is then isolated and treated on its own, which is the part that separates a power flush from simply dosing the system with cleaner and hoping.
Once the water runs clear the system is drained, refilled with fresh water and dosed with a corrosion inhibitor so it is not starting to rust again the week after we leave. We check the flow across every radiator before we pack up, and we will tell you if a magnetic filter is worth fitting to keep it clean.
What customers say about our heating work
Real reviews left on our Google Business Profile.
Where we power flush in Washington
We cover all of NE37 and NE38 from our base in Houghton le Spring, which is a short run up the A182 and A1231. That includes Concord, Sulgrave, Barmston, Fatfield, Oxclose, Usworth, Columbia, Rickleton, Blackfell, Albany, Biddick, Harraton, Glebe, Donwell, Springwell and Teal Farm, along with the industrial estates and the villages either side of the Wear.
If you are just outside Washington, in Birtley, Chester le Street, Penshaw or Shiney Row, we cover those too. Give us the postcode and we will confirm it on the phone.
Power flushing FAQs for Washington
The questions we get asked most before booking one in.