Orange sludge

pasquale

I was inspecting my newish (1 year old) radiant heating system and found orange sludge in the heat exchanger and in the pipe leading to the expansion tank. Basically in all the low bits of the system. What is it?

The system is a hot water heater heating a concrete slab through a heat exchanger.

The piping is Kitec pex-al-pex and the heat exchanger and the pump are stainless steel and bronze respectively.

The orange sludge is a little darker orange than the pex-al-pex pipe. Not quite a rust colour though. It easily washes out of the heat exchanger and other pipes etc.



What is it and should i be concerned?

EricAune

Check this website

http://www.plumbingdefect.com/index.html



No good news here about the tubing.

Mark Eatherton

Not the same...

That lawsuit was over the brass fittings that were corroding and failing. To the best of my knowledge, the only documented failure of the actual tubing was a case in Washington State, that was used on a combination system (contiguous water between space heating and DHW) and that case was loaded with other issues (high concentration of chlorine and excess continuous velocity issues).



So, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no documented failures of the tubing per se. If you can obtain a sample of the material, the manufacturer (or another independent lab) should be able to do a quick analysis and tell you what the material is.



I guess ANYTHING is possible...



ME

bill_105

Shoot it !

No, with a camera. A picture is worth a thousabd words