Sporadic Shutdowns - HeatnGlo Gas Insert

[elkiehound]

In November I had a HeatnGlo gas insert installed in my home.

Since it was installed I have a problem where the gas shuts off and the flame goes out. If I "tap" on the top of the unit, jump on the floor, wiggle the switch, it comes back on. The unit can run for hours at a time before this happens, or sometimes starts within a few minutes of startup. I have studied this and there is no apparent pattern to when it occurs.

I have talked to the installer and he suggested that the switch was bad, so that was replaced, and the problem continued.

Second, he suggested that it was a loose wire somewhere, so I reset all the connections and made sure the wires were not contacting the unit in any way... and the problem continues.

If it really was a wire, I would suspect that I could force the condition to happen by wiggling a wire, however despite my persistence, I have not been able to recreate the problem. It just happens randomly.

Any thoughts out there on what could be the root cause of this problem ?

Thanks

 

[jtp10181]

Could be a bad gas valve or thermopile. You need a service tech to come out and check millivolt readings. Unless you have a multimeter and are comfortable using it?

 

[STOVEGUY11]

I would agree with the possibility of the valve, or the thermopile. What you said about the randomness of the fire going out, made me think of a similar situation that I saw happen to a persons insert earlier this season. He was having the same problem, his unit would just randomly turn off. It turned out that there was too much slack in the intake liner, so it was not getting enough air constantly. Just a thought before the tech rips apart the unit.

 

[jtp10181]

Yeah we have had a lot of airflow problems as well. The symptoms did not seem to fit but that is also a possibility. We found that running two liners down makes them work a lot better than if you only the run a full exhaust liner and a stubby fresh air liner.