central heating is fine, but when hot water is demanded it becomes warm & after approx 15 to 20 seconds, shuts down. it will reingnite again after another 30sec- this patern will continune as i leave the water running. what i have noticed is that if i throttle the flow of water down then it becomes hotter, any suggestions what might be the cause of this would be much appreciated..perplexed d.i.yer

cotton bud, February 2011

It's a complicated issue overall, but one that can be overcome.
Removal and replacement of the DHE is a simple enough process, to clean it, you will need a propriety acid cleaner, pourd into the CH side of the DHE and left for a period to dissolve any deposit build up.

The trouble is, once cleaned and returned to the system, you will soon fill it up with sludge etc from the system you have just cleaned out from it.

The proper answer is a full system clean, however a cheaper alternative is to fit a magnetic cleaner on the system CH return pipework, these act as a filter to remove much of the sludge from re-entering the boiler.

There are a few on the market that seem to work quite well.
Spirotech
Fernox
Magnatec
They are just three more popular (no doubt there are more)
I've listed the first one as a website, just so you get the idea.

http://www.magnabooster2.co.uk/

Carefree, February 2011

many thanks to you -Carefree, can you tell me the best way to go about cleaning the heat exchanger out.

cotton bud, February 2011

Blockage in domestic heat exchanger

Carefree, February 2011