Hot Water Problem with Ideal Mini C28

Joined
18 Feb 2012
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Location
Essex
Country
United Kingdom
Hi,

Over the past months or so the hot water has become less and less reliable. At first I thought it was the shower playing up again (it had already been replaced within its first year!), but now im convinced its something more major as I can't get properly hot water anywhere in the house.

So heres the symptons:

When running at a trickle I can get "hot" water
When running at normal speed, I get luke warm at best water.
Sometimes it decides to go from hot -> cold -> hot. I looked inside the boiler when it was doing this and could see it turning itself on and off.
The red light to the left of the pump is on when DHW is requested
The CH pipe is very hot when DHW is requested.
The DHW pipe is luke warm

Any more information needed?

Thanks
 
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Just for additional information, the central heating works fine and the radiators get warm when DHW is run.
 
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So going by other posts of a similar nature, you are talking about this part:

bi1001101.JPG
*may not be the correct part but you get the drift!

Which in that case I'm guessing you'd also suggest a powerflush of the system? Is such a procedure likely to cause any problems with the plastic pipework I put in last year?
 
thats it !! probably the correct 1 as well ??

plastic pipe was it barrier pipe ?? if not / u will need a power flush , probably several in the next few years ??
 
Not sure, I replaced some of my copper pipework with pushfit plastic piping so I could get the pipework under the floor in several places.

Should this make any difference?

So do I just need that thing cleaned then? Or the whole system?
 
Not sure, I replaced some of my copper pipework with pushfit plastic piping so I could get the pipework under the floor in several places.

Should this make any difference?

So do I just need that thing cleaned then? Or the whole system?

just that thing will do :) , its probably scaled up on the secondary side any way , secondary side = where the mains water go's in cold & comes out hot , or in your case go's in cold & comes out warm ish ? power flushing system will only deal with the primary / heating side of the plate ??

most (?) plastic is barrier type pipe now , some plastic used to be non barrier , which caused oxygen ingress into the system , causing all sorts of problems with sludge build up
 
Thanks for the advice!

I went ahead and stripped the part out this morning. Left it with some acid in it for about 3 hours (could see it bubbling away in the top section), and then thoroughly washed it out. I'm sure i've not done the best job of cleaning it out, but it certainly worked.

After a few nervous moments of the boiler not firing up (i forgot to refill it) it started working. Instantly the hot water pipe was actually hot and not luke warm.

Guess im off for a hot shower now!
 
Guess I was a bit premature with the fact it was fixed!

The shower was warmer and usuable, but still not great. When I came down it had gone back to its old tricks of the CH pipe being really hot and the DHW pipe being warm. The boiler was also cutting out at 75 ish in order to cool itself down.

Am I better off just looking to get a new heat exchanger, or should I continue with trying to clean it?

If continuing to clean what should I use, and should I be putting something into the rest of the system to clean that too?
 

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