How to Clean & Flush Floor Heating Pipes?

Most families in cold areas have installed hydronic floor heating as a way to heat their houses. As we all know, the floor heating pipes will accumulate a lot of dirt because they have not been cleaned for a long time, which is easy to affect the heating effects of floor heating, so how to do the basic maintenance of floor heating pipes? How do the impurities in the floor heating pipes come about? Let's take a look at some daily precautions for these pipes.

There are three components of impurities in the floor heating pipes. The inside of the floor heating pipe is not completely sealed and the water in the floor heating pipe will evaporate, there will be an automatic water supply valve in the pipe to replenish water. Below is how do these impurities come from?

How Do Pipeline Impurities Come into Being?

1. Microorganism

The water contains a large number of microorganisms, and under certain conditions, a large amount of biological slime will be produced and attached to the non-scaling pipe wall.

2. Calcium and Magnesium Ions

Water contains calcium and magnesium ions, which will form calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate when heated, and will adhere to the inner wall of the pipeline if it is not cleaned for a long time.

3. External Pipeline

In the case of central heating, biological slime, impurities, scale, rust and pollutants in the external pipeline may also enter your own pipeline.

How Do these Impurities Affect Floor Heating?

1. Energy Consumption

The increase of impurities in the floor heating pipes will increase the resistance in the pipeline and increase the energy consumption of floor heating.

2. Waste of Heat

According to relevant statistics, every increase of 1mm thickness of the pipe wall will cause the indoor temperature to drop by 6°C and hinder the transfer of heat.

3. Pipeline Blocked

When the accumulation of impurities is serious, the pipeline will get blocked. After the pipe is blocked, it cannot supply heat. If the pipeline replacement project is huge, it will cause a lot of time and financial loss.

Floor heating pipes have complex shapes, long pipelines, and small diameters, so regular cleaning is necessary. In order to avoid pipeline fouling during installation, some floor heating sytems are equipped with filters at the source, but they cannot completely prevent dirt. Moreover, it is impossible to completely remove impurities in the water by only cleaning the filter screen in the later stage.

How to Clean & Flush the Impurities in the Pipeline?

1. Filter Cleaning

Clean the filter at the front end of the water separator every year to ensure the cleanness of the water pipe and prevent the pipeline from blocking.

Method:

• First, close the water inlet and return valves connecting the conduit, and use the vent valve to relieve pressure;

• Then open the filter, take out the filter screen and clean it. Check whether the filter screen is damaged or blocked. If it is damaged, it should be replaced with a new one of the same specification;

• Install it as it is, and then inject water to pressurize.

2. Chemical Cleaning

Soak the chemicals into the pipeline to achieve the cleaning effect. During the soaking process, scale and mud in the pipes will fall off, making it more unblocked and will not block the water flow.

3. Projectile Cleaning

Projectile cleaning mainly uses the friction between the cleaning projectile and the pipe to achieve the purpose of cleaning. This method is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so it is optional.

4. Jet Cleaning

When cleaning, use a cleaning agent with corrosion inhibitor, which can fully dissolve the slime attached to the pipe wall without pollution to the environment nor corrosion to the floor heating metal pipes.

5. Physical Pulse Wave Cleaning

Pulse cleaning uses vibration waves generated by mixing water and air to impact the heating tube to achieve the cleaning effect. The method is simple and the cleaning effect is good.