Lovely New Bit Of Kit

Hello everyone and welcome to our first FJM Plumbing & Heating blog. As we go along we will come up with some neat topics to cover and talk about but I am also going to use the blog to go through products we use as well as why we use them and offer them on our daily goings on as plumbing and heating engineers. I hope you find what we talk about at least a little educational and entertaining. All information is based on our own education, research and experiences within our industry, so I cannot guarantee everything is 100% factually correct but everything is to the best of our knowledge.

So today I am actually going to talk about our new powerflush set up. We have been in business now for 4 years in June after spending 10 years with British Gas and around 8 months with Pimlico Plumbers, so I have seen and dealt with pretty much most things that can be thrown at me in a variety of different settings. 

Powerflushing has always been a bit of a grey area and sore subject with a lot of engineers, about when to advise and when they actually need doing etc etc. We definitely think that powerflushing can work wonders but we have a fairly rigorous checklist we tend to follow before advising to do a powerflush. We will always check radiators with our Fluke laser heat sensing gun, remove the ‘H’ of a system where necessary and check for restrictions as well as carrying out a water test and assess the boiler for noise/kettling. We have other checks but the list gets a bit exhaustive. We also ALWAYS make sure that a powerflush is done when we do any new boiler installation.

Anyway, I digress……. Back to the point of our new set up. Previously we had an Anton machine coupled with their external magnetic flush filter. This machine worked fine for most of its life (2 years ☹). The magnetic filter has a clear glass canister which is great for seeing the water in the system, and great that customers can see what we are cleaning. This filter works great, no complaints other then it collects a lot of air at the top of the canister which is nightmare to keep removing, particularly when beginning a flush. For one reason or another, the shaft became bent on the machine motor and wore out the impeller housing, pressure from the pump died and the quality of the flush dropped significantly. Unfortunately Anton were no longer able to gain parts from Italy, and then low and behold, DEAD machine…..RIP. I am going to try and source the spares myself and then sell the machine and external filter on if possible as it will still work fine once fixed.

Old powerflush filter on the left and a Magnaclean filter magnet on the right for size comparison

So…….. the research began in to making the optimal set up as we pride ourselves on doing things right and doing a high quality job. Days of trawling Youtube, Google, speaking to fellow engineers, cups of tea and cake followed. Eventually our minds became set on combining the Norstrom Proflush Standard machine and an Adey Magnacleanse unit. Not a cheap way to go by any means but we want to achieve great results for our customers

We have been using this set up now for about a month and WOWWWEEEEE, the results are next level!!! We decided on getting an external filter as the powerflush machine has the option to add an integral heater, but we will see how we go on flushing as the jury is very much out on the effectiveness of the heaters as they are essentially an immersion heater and don’t really have the oomph to heat an entire heating system efficiently enough. We always flush with the boiler on as much as possible to 70-80 degrees and also find that the likes of Sentinels X800 and Adeys MC5 flush very well from cold.

The Norstrom Proflush Machine is incredible. The pump is significantly larger then what we had on the Anton and I’d say we are getting 3 or 4 times better flow from this machine, it also runs quieter too. The machine comes with a bund box (No idea what bund even means) but the machine fits neatly into the box which makes transportation of the equipment easy and also prevents any nasty spills on your customers carpets if we have to flush indoors. Simple solution, but great none the less. 

The hoses and fittings supplied are also top notch, easy to fit, no signs of leaks when it’s cold or hot (due to expansion of materials) and they are all easy to remove and put away again. The pump adapters are solid in construction. All in all a great package. 

New dual powerflush filters for Adey Magnacleanse after a powerflush

The machine comes with a 10m dump hose and 15m fill hose so we can fill easily from outside taps and dump to a sensible location as well without needing to join a few pipes as we had to do with the Anton hoses. Again, less chance of a leak in the customer’s home so everyone is happy. All round, fantastic machine, top quality and everyone is a happy bunny.

And now on to the Adey Magnacleanse….. where do I start. We tend to fit Magnaclean filters on all our flushes and boiler installs. The Magnacleanse kit comes supplied neatly in its own boxing which keeps everything tidy and easy to pack, with adaptors to fit straight on to all Magnaclean installations and the same robust hoses that are supplied with the Proflush…… TICK!!! 

So getting the Magnacleanse fitted to the system takes 10 minutes. Those of you that have done powerflushing will know that setting up and taking apart the equipment can take a couple of hours in itself. We can have the machine and Magnacleanse connected and put away within 30 minutes each way cutting down the overall job time.

The double filtration system works a treat too. The hoses supplied are clear so we can see when the dirty water is heading back to the filter unit, and what is amazing is that you can see a huge difference in the colour of the water going in to filters and what comes out, literally night and day. The filters have the usual Magnaclean air bleeds on top which makes venting air easy, the hoses come supplied with 28mm lever valves which also make it easy to isolate the unit for cleaning during a flush. And those magnets are great. Every time we have taken them out to clean them we are astounded by how much debris we are removing even from small and perceptively clean systems. Only slight issue is that Adey supply a magnet cleaner tool but it doesn’t work that great. But a Nitrile glove and blue roll work perfectly well so no dramas there!!

Norstrom Proflush Machine and powerflush system

In conclusion, I have only touched briefly on this equipment but suffice to say we are extremely pleased and a worthwhile (albeit pricey) investment for our customers. Chapeau and doth of our caps to Norstrom and Adey for their machine and filtration system respectively. Happy engineers here at FJM.

Thanks for reading and hope you found it a good read. If you have any subjects you would like us to cover or any feedback on our blogs then please email us. Like our Facebook Page or subscribe to our Youtube Channel. Look out for our next posting!!!