the ignition won't light on my living flame gas fire

hullaballoo

hi guys

Brrrrr, it's the coldest day of the year so far. I am sitting here in a hat and sleeping bag (not so fab and groovy, but very money saving I know) with my teeth chattering because the ignition on my living flame gas fire won't ignite.:eek:

Any tips from those in the know would be much appreciated. The fire hasn't been serviced for nearly 3 years cos I haven't had the cash. What should I be paying to get a corgi registered engineer out to take a look at it? Having read previous threads, I take it that it is not something I should have a go at myself.

yours with bated breath
hullaballoo

jillie1974

Hi
had a similar prob bout a year ago. ours (dont know how these things work) was connected to our heating system which ran off a timer and the fuse had gone in the timer. once we replaced that it was fine no problems since then

hullaballoo

thanks for that advice, I will check it out.:beer:
h

chrisw

In the meantime, if it's only the spark that's gone but the gas is coming through, you could light it with a match or preferably one of those longer lighters for barbeques, etc.

Canucklehead

Hi

You should really get someone to look at your fire. We are at opposite ends of the country so difficult to give a price for service but around £45 would be about right I think.
If you get it to work in the meantime please get a battery type carbon monoxide detector . Money is no use to you six feet under.!

Corgi Guy.

flang

I know cookers have a battery for the spark so maybe you should take a look and see if your fire has one!

andrew-b

With our valor living flame gas fire the ignition is powered by a standard 9v battery. On ours the bottom section of the grate at the front simply pulls out to reveal the battery housing and other workings plus an instruction card that's chained underneath.

When we moved to the house (4 months ago!) the ignition on our fire would spark once then not at all. I thought this was normal until our helpful and friendly Swale heating engineer who was installing a new condensing boiler at the time said that it should spark continuously while you hold the lever down. He suggested replacing the battery and sure enough it fixed the ignition prob!

I'd recommend finding/obtaining the instruction manual for your fire - ours along with baxi and wonderfire models is available on valor.co.uk website. The manual should tell you the correct place to light it manually if the battery fails.

As already suggested, the OP should really get their fire serviced ...though i confess I haven't had ours serviced yet. I intend to get our gas fire serviced next year at the same time when the boiler needs it's annual service - which should be a little cheaper than servicing both seperately.

Hope that helps the OP

Andy

hullaballoo

hi there

thank you very much for all the help and advice. I am going to get the fire serviced at the same time as my boiler, and not use it until then. I don't have a carbon monoxide detector, anyone know of a good source?

with warmest wishes
h

Moneymaker

Most DIY shops sell carbon monoxide detectors.

When my mother's gas fire refused to ignite, I removed the lower cover and discovered a screw lying on the floor. I then noticed a loose rod hanging from the ignition lever. The screw was supposed to be connecting this to the ignition system! I replaced the screw, replaced the AA battery, and it worked perfectly.