Gas fire not working properly AFTER servicing

MagWag

Thank you for your concern, but have you actually read the thread? I have not done anything dangerous and the man who came IS Gas Safe registered! I have paid to have the fire serviced professionally AND paid for a new thermocouple and flue seal - & I have ended up with working central heating but a dodgy fire (which worked previously).

My enquiry was NOT how to fix it myself - but what might be wrong so I know if it is reasonable to expect the original guy to put it right without charging me further or condemning my fire!

The engineer told me that he does most of the gas fire servicing for his firm and has done about 7 fires a day for 4 years - so I should think he DOES know what he is doing by now!

He told me that although the elements are not glowing very much this doesn't necessarily affect the efficiency of the fire (!?)...he did not seem to think it was dangerous, he just said that there wasn't anything else he could do.

rustyboy21

But even in your other posts, you are doubting that he has done it properly in the first place.

He should have done a gas pressure test on the fire with something lie this...

http://www.gasproducts.co.uk/acatalog/Anton_Easy_View_Plastic_U_Gauge_.html

You said he did a spillage test which lasted only a few minutes. He should have had the fire on for at least 10 minutes and conducted a spillage test a few times on it. The radiants not burning would have shown up then !

You are playing with fire ( pardon the pun ) here, you do not know whether you are getting emissions of incomplete combustion entering your room, leaving it on for 25 mins and then coming into the room, could end up with fatal CO poisoning.

I stand by what I said earlier, get someone else in to look at it, by the sounds of it, you need the fire, get someone who is au fait with the workings of a gas fire connected to a BBU. They don't run the same as a normal gas fire. A lot of heating engineers now have never worked on a BBU in their life, they are only used to ripping them out. As said before, you will not really get an RGI on here, giving advice on how to fix it, you are playing with something that could kill you, leave it to an expert.

Lastpost on the subject !

MagWag

It's OK rustyboy21 - no need to reply to this!

I don't know if it was done properly, I only know it doesn't glow much now...that's the problem and why I asked the question. I have to rely on 'an expert' which I assumed my guy was.

The company (I hope I am allowed to put this on - it isn't exactly an advert!) is called 'Northern Boiler Maintenance' & I found them on a web site (again I hope this is not breaking the rules) called 'mybuilder.com' where you can post your job & invite tradesmen to quote.

This is how I described the job;
SERVICING GAS FIRE WITH BACK BOILER
Description;
'I have bought a house with a gas fire & back boiler that has obviously not been serviced for some time. The gas fire itself works well but I am not happy to use the central heating at the moment because although the pilot will light (& stay lit) when the heating is turned on the flame is yellow, noisy and smelly (like a butane fire) and the fire is very inefficient.'

This is the company blurb; 'Annual servicing, repairs and installation of all domestic gas appliances, including LPG. Full Central Heating Systems, Landlords Gas Safety Certificates, System Power Flushing, all aspects of plumbing and heating work undertaken. Part P Electric approved.'

There is a long list of qualifications but this is for the boss - not the guy who did most of my job...I just have to assume he is also qualified, from our conversation it did sound like he was very familiar with them, in fact he told me my boiler was the most sooted up he had ever seen in 4 years (not surprising as it hadn't been serviced since 2004!!!!)...this is not a wealthy part of the world & these fires are still in a lot of houses - they even had a flue seal (new, still in it's packet) to replace my old one, half of which was missing.

They gave me the best quote (only by a few quid) & they were the closest - they got very good feedback from previous customers (I am not sure yet what feed back I shall give them)...so this is why I asked them to do the job.

As to the pressure tester...I did not see him use anything like that - though if it was a very quick operation I may have missed it? Is it a prerequisite of a service...& if so why would he NOT do it (does it take long to do)?

I am wary about calling them back again in case they just say 'condemned' ...I have central heating now and I would rather not go through another winter without it. I can not afford to pay out for two services...I had to save up for this one! I am going to invest in a CO alarm so if the fire is dangerous I will know about it & not use it...I have managed to survive into my 50's, living with all sorts of heating systems...I always err on the side of caution!

Next year I will ask someone else to do the servicing & see if they can put it back the way it was.

unclebulgaria

I'm not sure where this guy learnt his trade but sticking a gas burner in water to clean is not clever. Unless he vigorously dried that burner and got 100% of the dust and fluff out, the water would have clumped it all together inside the burner. There is a fine gauze in these burners and no amount of washing will shift it. He should have taken it off, taken it outside to knock the loose fluff/dust out then used his hoover over the top off the burner slits and then back over the ports that entrain the gas and air mix. A good blow out with canned air and maybe a soft pipe cleaner should have done it perfectly well. The ceramic elements do sometimes glow differently but its usually misaligned elements or blockages. Did he take out the gas jets and clean those too? He would have needed a spanner to remove these and a fine set of nozzle cleaners.
Most of all stop messing with your fire, if you don't break something you'll end up leaving your fire burning incorrectly (even worse than it is now) and maybe creating high CO levels due to unburnt gas.
Just because he's serviced lots of fires doesn't mean he's done yours right.
Find out what his gas safe I.D. number is, not his registration number, its a 7 digit number. Check this with gas safe and it'll tell you if he's registered to work on fires in his scope of work. Never assume that his gas safe registration number allows him to work on every appliance.

southcoastrgi

MagWag wrote: »

Well I took the front off the fire so I could see a bit more clearly what was happening; nothing to do with the ceramic elements as far as I could see...more like the burner - the flame on the outside two sections is more vigorous than the two inner ones.

I copied what I saw the engineer do, & tapped the burner sharply with the handle of my screwdriver & some more little flakes of white ash (?) fell out of the funnel like air inlets on the bottom of the burner.

I got a needle & checked that all the openings in the burners were free (they were) & I got some old frayed bicycle brake wire & poked it up the vents to see if I could dislodge any more ash...but nothing appeared.

I then switched off the gas & when the fire was cold I got my vacuum cleaner & sucked at the bottom of the air inlets to remove any more ash that might be there. I then relit the pilot light & the fire...& if anything I've made it worse & only the right hand burner is burning vigorously, so I guess there may be some blockage in there somewhere.

It looked complicated to remove the burner so I shouldn't really do that myself, though I know I could do a better job of cleaning it than the engineer - he just dunked it in water & not much debris came out, & I know he will want to sell me a new burner. So I guess I'm going to have to put up with it as it is... unless anyone else has any ideas.

Thanks to all who have tried to help! :-)

MagWag wrote: »

Thank you for your concern, but have you actually read the thread? I have not done anything dangerous

Ummmm i not sure about us reading the thread, have you read what you have wrote ?? "I haven't done anything dangerious" you have taken the front off of the fire, hit the burner with a screwdriver, poked it about with a needle & now it is worse than it was, so it is now prob dangerious with no way for you to test it, get it sorted by either the orginal co or someone else & don't use it until you do.

MagWag

Yes the jets were removed and cleaned, but I wish I had known more about that burner as it certainly was not cleaned as you described. I still can't understand why the fire should work less well after the service than before - unless it was due to the physical disturbance? Anyway I have bought a CO alarm now so I will know if there are any emissions and then I will take action accordingly. Thanks for all replies.