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prolonged whistling from Intermittent Pilot Ignition

mitch101
mitch101 Member Posts: 22
in Strictly Steam
There's a prolonged whistling sound before firing up my Crown steam boiler. It's coming from the Intermittent Pilot Ignition (made by UT). The whistling used to be much shorter in duration, but now it goes on for more than 20 seconds before firing the boiler. Any ideas?

Comments

  • nicholas bonham-carter
    nicholas bonham-carter Member Posts: 8,578
    The pilot is taking too long a time to fire the burner.
    The pilot/burner system may need cleaning, which is best done by an experienced tech with combustion equipment.—NBC
  • mitch101
    mitch101 Member Posts: 22
    Fixed that annoying whistling sound coming from the Honeywell gas valve on my Crown steam boiler. It turned out the flame sensor needed cleaning (with steel wool). No more prolonged whistling now! The flame sensor is a metal rod sticking out from one of the burners. It definitely *looked* okay, clean and unpitted. In fact, the pro who did a cleaning a while back never even touched it (I was watching him) so he must have thought the same thing. It *looked* okay.

    I'm just surprised it isn't part of a routine cleaning, visual inspection be damned! There's an invisible patina of something on it that needs to be rubbed off to bring the flame sensor back to life again. I wonder how many people just live with that prolonged, annoying whistling till the burners kick in....

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