Wind Blowing Out pilot Light

[shakermaker]

Hi All

I have a fairly old combi boiler which is under a british gas contract which works perfectly fine (no problems in the recent cold weather up here in the north) EXCEPT that since the last service in the summer, whenever we get extremely windy weather the pilot gets blown out (has happened twice). The first time I got it going OK on my own but yesterday was a problem & Bgas came & said the thermo couple was faulty, replaced it & we are now OK.

I just wondered if there was anything that could be done to stop it happening in the first place. It has never blown out before ever (although the flue is in quite an exposed position on the back wall) & I do recall the Bgas engineer in the summer saying he had to nip the gas pressure down a little as my emissions were borderline or something-I wondered if that made the pilot more susceptible to being blown out ?, when I spoke to the gas guy yesterday my problem was attributed to "the age of the boiler" which seemed a little crazy & general.

ANy thoughts appreciated

Cheers

 

[spraggo]

Hi All

I wondered if that made the pilot more susceptible to being blown out ?, when I spoke to the gas guy yesterday my problem was attributed to "the age of the boiler" which seemed a little crazy & general.

ANy thoughts appreciated

Cheers

The usual cause of the pilot light being blown out is because the combustion chamber lid or cover is not fitted or sealed correctly.
Look at the pilot flame and see if it is being effected by high winds, if so contact BG immediately as this would indicate such fault on their part.

spraggo

 

[45yearsagasman]

You've said that BG came and fitted a new t/couple and its now OK.Maybe that was the cause of the pilot outage.Leave it for a while and see if performs OK.Why go looking for faults that may not be there?

 

[shakermaker]

thanks both, I guess I didn't consider that the "burnt-out" thermo couple (gas mans words !) had caused the pilot to extinguish as the 2 times it has happened were on the evenings with gales.

Does the gap in the seal give the wind a tunnel to flow through ?

Cheers

 

[spraggo]

thanks both, I guess I didn't consider that the "burnt-out" thermo couple (gas mans words !) had caused the pilot to extinguish as the 2 times it has happened were on the evenings with gales.

Does the gap in the seal give the wind a tunnel to flow through ?

Cheers

Yes.

 

[DP]

Does the gap in the seal give the wind a tunnel to flow through ?

There should be no gap in the seal.

What boiler and model. That will help immensely.

 

[shakermaker]

Hi DP

Sorry I missed this yesterday PM, I was referring to Spraggos post when mentioning the seal, I guess since Bgas came & did internal & external sensor checks (for exhaust gases I'm guessing ?) they will have put it back in one piece correctly.

No gales since but a bit of wind planned for Sat night per Met Office so we will see, Boiler is a Worcester 240 BF combi.

I just wanted to stop it happening in the first place if possible although merely having to relight the pilot whilst a pain, is a high quality problem compared to the issues faced by others

Cheers