Jetflushing North of the Border!

new Sentinel Jetflush Junior offers flexible response to jetflushing opportunities

There’s a plumbing and heating firm – Preston Fleming Plumbing & Heating - based in Cardross, just north of Glasgow that has been offering high quality services to its customers since 1954. And it’s a family business that saw a fourth generation join the firm as an apprentice 12 months ago! So it’s very much a case of ‘keeping it in the family’. Heading up the firm is Preston Fleming who’s a member of SNIPEF and later this year takes on the role of President of the Glasgow & West of Scotland Plumbers Association after a year as its number two.

Preston and his firm have been firm believers in the importance and value to their customers of jetflushing heating systems for many years. They have used their Sentinel Jetflush units very successfully for the past six years and have recently taken delivery of the brand new Sentinel Jetflush Junior – a lighter weight, smaller, easier to use system and Preston is full of praise for the new addition’s qualities.

“We’ve used the Jetflush 4 pretty much every day of the week since we’ve had it and for modern homes that have up to 26 radiators. Older homes with old fashioned cast iron rads are a different matter, but the Jetflush 4 has been a marvellous investment for us. The new Jetflush Junior, although the same in many ways is also different in many ways as well. The Jetflush 4 tends to rely on a reasonable heat in the system combined with the chemicals. The Jetflush Junior doesn’t need the heat in the system to do the job. It’s certainly lighter and smaller so ideal I’d think for one man bands, but its also useful for us when we’re working on smaller homes – perhaps up to fifteen rads in a modern home. Having both units available is ideal for us and we can take the one that’s right for the job with us every day in the van,” says Preston.

The new unit weighs just 15kgs when empty and incorporates a number of features that will appeal immensely to installers. These include the use of 15 metres of 12.5mm (½”) braided clear tubing, an easy to observe water level indicator, a drain point that allows the removal of any residual water left in the unit after the flushing has been completed and an ‘inline’ on/off control that provides an effective means of operating the unit without having to be right next to the unit at the time.

The unit, constructed from medium density polyethylene uses a similar compact version of the submersible Grundfos pump that is used in the Jetflush 4. Typical working flow rates are 14m³/hr @ 9 metres head, giving the unit considerable ‘oomph’ when used in conjunction with Sentinel’s tried and tested range of chemical cleaners to remove even the most stubborn sludge, scale and other debris from domestic heating systems – from radiators, pipework and heat exchangers. The unit can be used with Sentinel X800 Jetflo – Sentinel’s heavy duty, ‘one visit’ chemical system cleanser and will quickly restore optimum efficiency levels to a domestic heating system.

Preston is a great fan of Sentinel’s X800 Jetflo that won the H&V News Domestic Product of the Year award last year. He can understand why: “I’ve been sold on Sentinel products for twenty years,” he says. “Of course I’ve tried other chemicals but not for long and I’ve always come back to Sentinel, and with good reason. The products are consistently high quality and they are an important part of what I offer to my customers. Whether the private domestic work, which is the larger part of the work we do, or the new build work we do for local builders in the area, using quality products is vital to me. Virtually every boiler manufacturer recommends Sentinel by name and they do that for a reason. They all know that using quality chemical water treatment products will help to ensure their boiler operates to optimum efficiency and stop the scale and the sludge build up that wastes energy and can damage the boiler, the pump and valves in particular. It simply makes sense to me. And frankly the cost of water treatment as a percentage of the overall cost of a job is very small and it doesn’t make sense to me to skimp on the quality of the water treatment by saving a few quid by using an own brand or an inferior quality product that could invalidate the boiler warranty anyway. X800 to clean the system. X100 to inhibit it and keep it in tip top condition. It all make good common sense to me.”

Preston is also a fan of the newly launched Sentinel system filter product. In fact he was the first heating engineer in Scotland to fit one north of the border: “Again it simply makes so much sense. It’s a belt and braces product in a way – if you use the chemicals properly, the sludge and debris build up should be minimal, but the new unit is easy to fit, easy to access, there’s no need to drain down the system as you do with some competitor products to empty it and if you need to top up the inhibitor in the system you can do so through the filter. Importantly, it removes all the debris in the system – magnetic and non-magnetic. It’s an excellent piece of kit I would recommend to everyone in the business.”