Hi all, new to this forum and I thought I'd give this a shot!
So, last winter our Vermont Castings natural gas fireplace made a loud Whoosh before it fired up. At the start of this season, it fired up ok but the pilot wouldn't stay on and the main burner wouldn't light. Hired a gas service tech guy to come check it out. $500 later (cdn), he replaced the Honeywell gas valve (he actually had a 1001782 in stock) and the thermopile. It still wouldn't light properly after replacing those components. One thing I noticed was that the pilot flame was only about 1/4" high. He then cleaned the pilot fitting thing (where the flame comes out), now the flame is like 3/4" high and everything works fine. Turns out last years whoosh was gas sitting around the main burner until the pilot fired it. The pilot flame wasn't big enough to light the main burner quick enough hence the gas build up and the whoosh.
So I pay, he leaves, then I get reading on this forum and am thinking the only thing that really needed to be done was clean or replace the pilot flame thing. I bench check the thermopile that was replaced and it checks out fine. I would like to check out the gas valve as well. Is there a way of bench testing that Honeywell valve without hooking it up to a gas supply? I think it's probably still good and I'd try and sell on ebay for like $50.
Anyways, thought I'd check here!
This forum is a great source of info...thx!!
Fergusd
So, last winter our Vermont Castings natural gas fireplace made a loud Whoosh before it fired up. At the start of this season, it fired up ok but the pilot wouldn't stay on and the main burner wouldn't light. Hired a gas service tech guy to come check it out. $500 later (cdn), he replaced the Honeywell gas valve (he actually had a 1001782 in stock) and the thermopile. It still wouldn't light properly after replacing those components. One thing I noticed was that the pilot flame was only about 1/4" high. He then cleaned the pilot fitting thing (where the flame comes out), now the flame is like 3/4" high and everything works fine. Turns out last years whoosh was gas sitting around the main burner until the pilot fired it. The pilot flame wasn't big enough to light the main burner quick enough hence the gas build up and the whoosh.
So I pay, he leaves, then I get reading on this forum and am thinking the only thing that really needed to be done was clean or replace the pilot flame thing. I bench check the thermopile that was replaced and it checks out fine. I would like to check out the gas valve as well. Is there a way of bench testing that Honeywell valve without hooking it up to a gas supply? I think it's probably still good and I'd try and sell on ebay for like $50.
Anyways, thought I'd check here!
This forum is a great source of info...thx!!
Fergusd
