Vermont Castings Radiance Direct Vent Gas Stove -- Thermopile defective?

[sandpipe]

Hi, I have the above stove and the pilot lights easily but as soon as the gas control knob is turned to ON, instead of the flames coming on as they used to do, the pilot light immediately goes out. Does this indicate a bad thermopile?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--Sandpipe

 

[DAKSY]

It seems like every time I got called to service one of these units, the problem was always the same thing you're experiencing. I never found it to be a bad T-Pile, but YMMV. There may be a secondary spill switch wired into the system & located near the top of the stove. Many times that's where I found the issue to originate. Because that wiring is in a high heat area, the sheathing on the wiring to the spill switch had dry-rotted & crumbled away from the copper core, allowing the wire to short to ground. You might check to see if you have such a safety system in yours. Generally replacing the wiring with 18ga. T-Stat wire solved the problem. Good luck.

 

[sandpipe]

Thanks for the suggestion Daksy. I did some google searching and found a site that said that there is a known flaw in the Honeywell valve and that the workaround is to make sure to very slowly turn the knob from PILOT to ON. I didn't get to the apt. where the stove is located to try this yet but the tenant said she tried it and got the stove to light! So so far so good. But I will also keep in mind your suggestion if the slow rotation of the knob technique fails to work consistently.