Dodgy pilot light (with pictures)

[Confiteor]

Hello

I am having trouble with my pilot light in my potterton Flamingo boiler.

A couple of months ago it went out.

A heating engineer eventually got it going properly again by sheer luck, as it fired up just as he was about to give up.

It has worked fine for these last couple of months, but went out again last night.

I can relight it, but it keeps going out again after a while.

To try to avoid another £70 call-out, is there any chance someone could look at the attached picture showing (from left) the thermo, igniter and gas supply.

I am wondering if the area of flame I have added a pointer to is normal. It looks to me like some gas is leaking before it gets up to the igniter.

Is this normal, or could this be my problem?

Cheers.

 

[Agile]

The thermocouple does not seem to be illuminated adequately.

However the flame picture will be different with the cover on.

The pilot cowl is probably dirty and causing that spurious small flame.

All these gas things would normally be dealt with by a competent CORGI though.

Tony

 

[oakland99]

your boiler needs a service asap, when was it last serviced? the pilot is dirty hence yellow flame, this is causing pilot to go out, im guessing its an open flued boiler as you've managed to take the picture easy, turn boiler off and get a corgi eng to service asap.,,not the last bloke who called he should have known the problem and advised better if the pilot looked like that when he called

 

[Confiteor]

Thanks.

The last guy who came in was meant to return to give it a full service, but I haven't heard from him since.

P.S. I expressly asked him about the yellow flame, and he said it wasn't a problem. I had read on here that that might be an area of concern.

 

[Agile]

Many of the older boilers did have a rather floppy and yellowish flame by modern standards.

Its difficult to judge yours in the photo but it certainly looks too yellow but that would be improved by a proper repair/service.

Tony

 

[Confiteor]

It is an older boiler, but he said one of the advantages of this was that it was a simpler design than the latest models, so there was less to go wrong.

Anyway, I have arranged for another firm to come out and service it tomorrow.

They are quoting £50 for a general clean. I take it this is reasonable?

Cheers.

 

[Agile]

Very reasonable but make sure they realise that they have to remove and clean the pilot assembly.

Tony