New idea about Ferroli Falcon problem...

[Simon0987]

I'm trying to understand a problem with my Ferroli Falcon. People have been kind enough to offer their opinion to previous descriptions of it but the following paragraph from the manual makes me wonder whether an air leak could be the root as the symptoms seem to be a bit worse on colder days. Sorry I didn't mention this before but I never imagined it could be relevant.

Just to recap, the problem is that when there is demand for heating or hot water the burner goes on and off rapidly (every few seconds) instead of staying on continuously. Then after 5 or so minutes the boiler locks out. I can reset the boiler but it will do exactly as before, rapid on and off then lock-out after 5 mins.

Once again many thanks to anyone kind enough to offer their opinion. Below is the paragraph from the manual.

6.02 Cleaning the boiler and burner

The boiler should be serviced annually. The heat exchanger and burner must never be cleaned with chemical products or steel brushes. Particular attention must be paid to all seals and fixings associated with the room-sealed compartment (gaskets, grommets, etc). Air leakage would cause pressure inside the compartment to drop, possibly tripping the differential pressure switch and thus shutting down the boiler. After cleaning particular attention should also be paid to checking stages of start-up and operation of the thermostats, gas valve and pump.

 

[Gasguru]

Your boiler is similar to The Ferroli Modenas etc and are renowned for lockouts.

Most of the checks require a corgi installer since they involve the combustion chamber and setting burner rates etc. There are several likely causes including disintegrating venturis and pitot tubes, poor ignition and sense electrode position, missing flue restrictor rings, incorrect ignition/min/max burner pressures, thermistors, the pcb (they are not particularly reliable on the Ferroili versions of this boiler). ie most of the boiler components. Forget the pump, it's only used for heating and you have problems with the hot water as well. For such a simple boiler design it has a considerable number of common faults.