The two prices, explained
A standalone MagnaCleanse power flush is £499. The same flush carried out alongside a new boiler installation is £350. Both prices are fixed before booking, and the standalone figure is the one Lloyd advertises publicly, so there is no mystery markup happening on this page.
Why is it cheaper with an install? No conspiracy, just logistics. During an installation the system is already drained, opened up and being worked on, the kit is already set up in your home, and the engineer is already there for the day. Flushing a system that is already on the operating table costs less than opening it up specially, and the price difference passes that saving on.
The symptoms that mean sludge
Heating system sludge is rust and debris that settles wherever water moves slowest, and it announces itself in a recognisable pattern: radiators cold at the bottom but hot at the top, rooms that never quite warm up while others roast, dirty brown or black water when you bleed a radiator, kettling and banging noises from the boiler, and a pump or heat exchanger that keeps failing.
If your boiler is also losing pressure, that is usually a separate issue with its own checks, covered in the pressure guide. The two problems can happen together in an older system, which is exactly when a proper look by an engineer beats guessing.
What a MagnaCleanse flush actually does
A MagnaCleanse flush circulates the system at high flow while powerful magnets capture the suspended iron sludge, radiator by radiator, until the water runs clear. The system is then dosed with chemical inhibitor to slow new corrosion. It is a different animal from simply draining and refilling, which leaves most of the settled sludge exactly where it was.
Honesty matters here, because flushes are one of the most oversold jobs in heating. Not every system needs one. A lightly affected system can often be sorted with a chemical inhibitor and clean at £120, and if that is all your system needs, that is what Lloyd will tell you. The full flush is for systems with real, established sludge, and the symptoms above are the tell.
Flush first, or new boiler first?
If your boiler is on its way out anyway, do not pay £499 to flush a system and then buy a boiler separately. Have the flush done with the installation at £350, which protects the new boiler from day one. Fitting a new boiler into a sludged system is how heat exchangers die young, and a clean, inhibited system is also what manufacturers expect to see behind their warranty.
If the boiler is healthy and the radiators are the problem, the standalone flush stands on its own. Either way the price is agreed before work starts: get a fixed installation quote in about 90 seconds with the online tool, or start at the boiler repair page if you suspect the boiler itself is the patient.
