last updated 6th January 06
by 4ecotips.com

Quantifiable loss in energy efficiency due to 'dirty systems'

Sentinel, a leading UK chemical water treatment provider for domestic heating systems, has published extracts from the first ever independent research programme into the benefits of chemical water treatment - to their knowledge, anywhere in the world - undertaken on their behalf by GASTEC.

The research confirms that sludge build up in radiators on a normal domestic heating system can reduce their effectiveness by up to 15%. In addition, it says that proper cleansing of a system using a chemical additive to 'break-up' sludge deposits combined with a power-flush of the system will result in greater uniformity of radiator temperature and result in less risk of system hydraulic imbalance.

This in turn should lead to an increase in overall boiler energy efficiency of 2% - an increase that is substantial enough to turn a boiler effectively operating within SEDBUK Band 'B' (between 88-90%) into an operational Band 'A' boiler.

There is considerable evidence that many installers do not correctly flush out domestic heating systems when they are upgrading the system hardware, controls or replacing the boiler.

Many boiler replacements - and there are more than 1 million of these a year in the UK - are currently sponsored or part supported by Government grants, either directly or indirectly, and there is an understandable fear from Government and from those agencies responsible for overseeing energy efficiency improvements, that the absence of such flushing is degrading the value of the new boiler installations.

The brief for the research was to gain a greater understanding of the problems that inadequate cleaning and treatment of systems may cause, to quantify the loss in energy that may arise as a result and to quantify the consequential gain that can be expected from - and which is directly attributable to - correct cleaning and inhibiting of systems utilising the company's product range.

It is important to stress that the research relates to the use of Sentinel products - not chemical water treatment products per se - as many of the products on the marketplace are recognised as being of vastly inferior quality, with very little active chemical ingredient. Indeed some products are as much as 97% water, just 3% chemical content, and these products will clearly not have the impact that quality products with a far higher percentage of active ingredient will have on a system.

The research project was based around a purpose-built replica of a simple domestic installation, comprising a 11kW condensing boiler and five radiators at two levels. The radiators were all extended surface single panel units and fitted with two lockshield valves. The hydraulic load of the system was accurately balanced.