Hello,
After the recent heat my Halstead Finest Platinum, now 5 years old, failed to heat up domestic hot water with a 'Lockout Flame Signal' error.
Now that the weather is not so hot, the boiler works more often. When I check the smell of what comes out of the flu when the boiler fails (the fan is turned on full as the ignition takes place), I can’t smell any gas. I can hear the tick-tick-tick of the electrodes. Everything sounds OK. I don’t seem to hear anything from the gas valve though, even when the boiler succeeds to ignite the gas. But when the ignition works, the smell of gas is quite strong out of the flu, even at a distance.
As my hob is connected to the same pipe as the boiler gas feed (LPG) and the hob has never had any gas feed failure, I can assume that the gas reaches the boiler OK. The gas valve in the boiler may be the culprit.
I understand that I need to ask a CORGI-registered engineer to undertake this repair, but at £160+ the part (gas valve 988535) plus man hours (with the risk of a different diagnostic if the problem fails to happen when the repair man turns up), I would like to check what you experts think of this.
Is there an easy and safe way to tell whether the problem is really with the gas valve?
Also, perhaps an important element to consider: when the water has reached the right temperature and the boiler stops heating anymore and comes back to the mode where hot water is running out but no heating is required (the pump sounds as if it's still going), the heating with gas requested afterwards always succeeds. The failure would only re-occur after the boiler has reset itself to complete standby mode.
Many thanks for your help.
Eric
After the recent heat my Halstead Finest Platinum, now 5 years old, failed to heat up domestic hot water with a 'Lockout Flame Signal' error.
Now that the weather is not so hot, the boiler works more often. When I check the smell of what comes out of the flu when the boiler fails (the fan is turned on full as the ignition takes place), I can’t smell any gas. I can hear the tick-tick-tick of the electrodes. Everything sounds OK. I don’t seem to hear anything from the gas valve though, even when the boiler succeeds to ignite the gas. But when the ignition works, the smell of gas is quite strong out of the flu, even at a distance.
As my hob is connected to the same pipe as the boiler gas feed (LPG) and the hob has never had any gas feed failure, I can assume that the gas reaches the boiler OK. The gas valve in the boiler may be the culprit.
I understand that I need to ask a CORGI-registered engineer to undertake this repair, but at £160+ the part (gas valve 988535) plus man hours (with the risk of a different diagnostic if the problem fails to happen when the repair man turns up), I would like to check what you experts think of this.
Is there an easy and safe way to tell whether the problem is really with the gas valve?
Also, perhaps an important element to consider: when the water has reached the right temperature and the boiler stops heating anymore and comes back to the mode where hot water is running out but no heating is required (the pump sounds as if it's still going), the heating with gas requested afterwards always succeeds. The failure would only re-occur after the boiler has reset itself to complete standby mode.
Many thanks for your help.
Eric
