Aren't these devices, for want of a better word compete ********?

Salus magnetic cleaner on eBay £55 delivered!! Partner gets them for work! Work just as well...

What do you say if they don't ask? Usually, especially if I meet any ladies I tell them I'm an airline pilot, it helps a lot.

I'm a plumber if anyone asks, although I also do gas, LPG, oil and solid fuel.

Plumbers used to be the most skilled tradesmen, now our trade has been reduced to monkeys strangling pipes, happy to be paid in peanuts. Then there's heating engineers who have done an 8 week gas safe course and suddenly think they know it all and will be earning 50k a year.

Being a plumber i shall share my advice. Magnetic filters are brilliant. I cannot vouch for this brand though as I've never fitted one. We install Magna cleans and fernox's. If you are very hands on with diy in the plumbing department then have a go. It should only take a competent plumber 1-2 hours max if all goes smoothly and no hiccups.

An old traditional boiler has a less-efficient heat exchanger with larger channels which are less likely to get blocked by the stuff that this will trap. But I'd say any system would benefit from one of these, and you can keep it when you upgrade to a better boiler. Inhibitor is definitely a good idea in all systems - it helps to prevent your radiators rotting away, for instance (creating the stuff that blocks boilers).

I'd really like to know why its less of a worry with an old traditional boiler, are you saying it doesnt need a Magna(similar) or inhibitor, would it benefit if one was installed? appreciate all info.

It is - just read the instructions and make sure you close the right valves before unscrewing it. And be careful about splashes, as the water can stain.



The scale inhibitor should be on the cold feed through a combi (or cylinder), there's no need to fit one on the closed heating circuit. Use the correct dose of inhibitor instead.

Best bet is to fit an electrolytic scale inhibitor inline too.

Easy to get confused on all this. With all the contentious advice. To me it depends on the set up in your home.

If you have an old traditional boiler then there's less to worry about. The issues come with combi boilers.
If you have metallic particles in your radiators then one of these devices could improve matters
But this will only happen if you have old/rubbish radiators which have started to corrode.
You can minimise this by making sure you have inhibitor in the system and it's regularly topped up.
If you do have old radiators then depending on how may you have, get them replaced.

Fitting one of these filters is relatively easy but you have to drain down the system.
Would say a competent person can do it in an hour.
Remember its a plumbing job (anyone with a spanner) not a heating engineer job (ie gas safe registered).
So dont pay inflated rates

I'll just try and clean it out myself.Seems quite a simple task.

I'll wager that those weren't sealed systems and there were slow leaks that were constantly being replenished. (Or if sealed, they were being topped up regularly rather than the leak(s) being corrected.)

One time long ago in our house I witnessed a plumber use a freezing technique to stop the water flowing on both sides of a pipe section he needed to replace. I think it was the main stopcock tap that was replaced! Wonder of the £30-quoting plumber planned to use this method so as not to have to drain the entire CH system?

The Magnaclean is a good product but imho the MB3 is really quite poor. Yes it is brass and has a good warranty period but collection capacity and magnet strength is nowhere near up to scratch. Check out the Eclipse Magnetics' Boilermag or even Fernox TF1. They all do the same job but some are just so much better at it than others..

On the plus side, when (if) your boiler fails because your heating pipes are blocked your insurance will cover the cost, and it'll be down to their own poor servicing.

We have a MagnaClean which is similar.
We also have boiler insurance so there is an annual service.
The engineer is a lazy **** tho and doesn't clean it out,even tho it would only use up a few minutes of his precious time.Says it's not part of the boiler and so won't touch it.:(

we have the magnaclean professional and our plumber only charged £30 to fit it as it was a quick job

This problem can be exacerbated by a badly designed system. My brother had a sludged up 15mm pipe, totally blocked. The pipe had a very sharp downward looping bend, the heating was switched off for a few weeks and the pipe became totally furred up. No idea why the original installation had such a crazy set up.
My daughter's central heating (4 year old system) had a leak from the overflow, idiot plumber had not connected the overflow pipe from the central heating feed header tank properly, it was just hanging loose. The overflow water ran down the side of the tank and through the ceiling into her bedroom. Ballcock he used was knackered, looked like he had recycled it from a previous job.
So a lot of central heating issues are down to poor workmanship.

I would be annoyed if it took over two hours including getting all the rads back working again with a rouigh balance. Also BG don't bother fitting these on the return to the boiler - its wherever its easiest to do (preferably without access to service it, putting plenty of strain on the pipework because they bodged it in).

Hard water is not an issue in the CH or water heating circuits because it's the same water going round and round, once the limescale has come out of it no more gets deposited. Not an issue IMO. More of an issue with flowing hot water.

On the other hand, rust particles do come out of radiators and clog the CH circuit. My plumber used a magnet to locate a solid block of ferrous gunk at the lowest point of mine, and even though he could access it by removing a stop, he could not shift it and had to replace a pipe section. I should have had one of these magnetic traps fitted and will next time.

To be fair that isn't that bad a quote, it's a good half days work unless it is being done as part of other work on the system.

Hard water isn't really ever an issue in a heating system though, other than in the dhw supply ie your hot water tank (or the heat exchanger if you have a combi). Sludge and iron are a problem and micro bore can suffer worse if it isn't kept clean.

Glad to hear it - my plumber fitted a Magnaclean Micro.

Call your local plumber for a quote.
British gas charge on general twice as much as the normal rate.

Judging by the ferrous gunk mine has collected, definitely not.

British Gas have just quoted me £235 to fit one of these so £70 is a steal if you have the where with all to fit it yourself!!

To be hoped it's better than screwfixs own.... got fridge magnets with more pull!

There is though...

I love it that there's no bleed valve, dead handy.

Thx for advice.

Microbore is fitted in pretty much every new build because everything is chosen on price. There is nothing wrong with it if system water is treated correctly, unfortunately it rarely is (there's also supposed problems softening water with aluminium heat exchangers such as Worcester Bosch crap).

These filters offer no protection against scale, (bar the limited particle filter).

No not really. I was just acknowledging that hard water may be a problem for raptorcigs, but not a problem for microbore in soft water areas. Micro bore seems to have gone out favour generally. Seems daft not to use it in soft water areas, less water sloshing about in the pipes, every penny counts.

isn't that a defunct comment then? They stated hard water killed their boiler. You live in a soft water area therefore won't experience the same problems

Built my house 25 years ago. 14 radiators all with 8mm microbore. Never had any problems. Have drained the system a few times to add or change a radiator and water runs as clean as the day it was commissioned. One of the advantages of living in a soft water area.

For an extra tenner get a Magnaclean or Spirotech MB3, by far the best filters on the market.

It will save 6% a year on your heating bill (my ****!).

Just a helpful note: i had 2 boilers die due to hard water deposits in the 8mm micro bore pipes,if you are having a new system fitted demand (if BG are doing it) to fit 15 mm copper pipe instead.

Yeah I'd call a plumber if not that practical no one wants to flood there house. Good idea by the way, they use this idea on automatic transmissions to keep bits of metal out of the oil. Probably only worth doing on newer boiler installs as there's probably a lot of gunk in older systems

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thanks, will call a plumber!

ordered thanks

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Yes you do you'll have to drain the system & cut into the return pipe on the heating & fit may need to replace the inhibitor too

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do I have to cut into pipe work to install it?

Nope - no plumber needed, just buy a few tools at Asda and wing it, that's my advice.

Been after one of these, how easy are they to install, do I need a plumber to do it?

Unbelievable what these things take out of your system, got mine from Plumco in Sheffield, got free chemicals with mine too
plumcoltd.co.uk/ind…ers

if you have a gas boiler then when you have the boiler serviced the engineer should clean this too. if not you can do it yourself by turning the isolator off then remove the cap. inside you will find a magnet which can be removed and cleaned. if you are unsure though leave it to a plumber to sort as it can get messy if you dont know what you are doing.

yes,it needs to be emptied. First make sure your boiler is off and not about to turn on then turn both valves to closed position and undo the cap and clean, i have a different make so it's always good to download the manual :smile:

Have this in our rented place. No idea what it was. Do we need to do anything to maintain it?

Nice price Rappy :smile: heat