Constant lochinvar nightmare

needheathelpmom

Ironman or similar hero I’m hoping you can help me. I own 2 knights lochinvar units both purchased in oct 2011 my plumber passed away and I can’t find anyone to solve the constant issues I have with 1 of my units. I keep getting lockout flame fail ignite it was only happening when it got real cold below 15 degrees but now it’s happening all the time. I’m so sick of paying people to come and study my manuel and never solve the problem. Can u point me to a lochinvar tech in my area or give some advise please

tim smith

What model of boiler? exact model.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

What's your city and state?

needheathelpmom

The Manuel says knight wall mount models WH 55-399

needheathelpmom

And the water heater is a lochinvar squire

needheathelpmom

Model number on unit WHN085 my tentants unit is model number WHN055 but they look exactly the same excerpt hers works

needheathelpmom

Worcester massachusetts

delta T

Have you had the boilers serviced and cleaned recently?

SuperJ

delta T said:

Have you had the boilers serviced and cleaned recently?

Sounds like the original poster has already had some people to look at it, but needs help finding the right person for the task after some disappointments.

Tinman

I'd say its a lack of competent service nightmare rather than a Lochinvar nightmare. The WHN is a very good boiler. Other than this great site, you may want to check Lochinvar's site for one of their approved service providers in your area.

delta T

@SuperJ Mostly I'm wondering if the heat exchanger has ever actually been cleaned...

Isn't @GW close to there?

Jamie Hall

delta T said:

@SuperJ Mostly I'm wondering if the heat exchanger has ever actually been cleaned...

Isn't @GW close to there?

About an hour (Northampton) away... when the construction isn't too bad. @Charlie from wmass isn't that far, either.

Ironman

I agree that we need to get a competent tech on site. Try the contractor locator above.

Was the boiler setup with a digital combustion analyzer when it was installed? If so, did the installer give you a printout of the analysis?

GW

Sorry I’m not familiar with that boiler and I’m a lightweight with travel, 20/30 minutes, maybe further for a bigger install job. Hope it all gets fixed soon!

tim smith

Sorry about delayed response, as long as been serviced and combustion tested lately, get the later version of flame rod, knurled rod, helps improve flame signal.also make sure the ground lead is clean and tight. I can honestly say with close to a 100 WHN boilers Installed, we only had one give us ignition problems and this fixed it. We are very familiar with this boiler, in almost 8 yrs, we have never had to replace more than igniter/flame rods on all these boilers. And no, I don’t represent Lochinvar, just really respect their firetube boiler, aka WHN, KHN models. Have your tech Go over issue with tech support before putting in anymore parts except maybe updated flame rod.

Brewbeer

@Charlie from wmass just tuned up my Loch WHN 55 a couple of months ago.

Love this boiler (photo in signature).

modconwannabe

Throwing this out there in case it's helpful: I had frequent lockouts on an otherwise finely tuned Triangle Tube and had the igniter replaced, and things still didn't work. Only way I could get it to ignite was by "choking' the intake so the gas was extra rich. A different plumber came and instantly realized that something was up with gas flow, measured the meter while boiler was ignited at max and sure enough that was the issue. Turns out that the microfilter in the internal gas valve had been fouled with extra fine dust, likely as a result of work on the line up the street. Had to replace the whole valve as apparently you can't swap the filter, but it's been fine ever since.
May be unrelated but thought I'd mention in case nothing else works.

BernardCuzzillo

@modconwannabe: Correct. It looks like about a #110 strainer which would pass about 0.14mm particles.

Zman

BernardCuzzillo said:

@modconwannabe: Correct. It looks like about a #110 strainer which would pass about 0.14mm particles. </bl

@BernardCuzzillo
What does the size of a Triangle Tube gas valve filter have to do with this post? The original post...

HomerJSmith

I know a good Medium, maybe we can have a seance. Oh, well.

I had a lockout on a Lochinvar fire tube recently. It turned out to be the Molex plug on the circuit board. Unplugging it and replugging it solved the problem. This isn't the first time I had a problem with Molex connectors.

Yours was the exact problem I faced.

Funny how experience make us wiser. Some say it's the only way we learn.

Le John

I would ask the tech to have his combustion Analyzer ready and then call Lochinvar Technical Support at 800-722-2101. They will walk him through any adjustments to the gas valve both on High and Low Fire settings. This step is crucial to having the boiler live a long an healthy trouble free life.

He may have to inspect the burner and heat exchanger to make sure the burner is clean and the heat exchanger isn't blocked.

modconwannabe

Zman said:

BernardCuzzillo said:

@modconwannabe: Correct. It looks like about a #110 strainer which would pass about 0.14mm particles.

I had mentioned it because the symptoms the original post described pretty well matched what I had experienced and then had solved: cold weather, mysterious failure to ignite followed by lockouts. As I said, may not be the same issue, but figured I'd throw out my experience in case it was helpful. If every plumber knew the exact answer to every situation, and they all agreed, this site wouldn't have thousands of posts, would it?

Zman

@modconwannabe
I guess the reference to the TT boiler is vaguely similar to the original post.
I really dislike the title "constant lochinvar nightmare" being rehashed over and over again. To be fair to Lochinvar, it should be titled, "how do I find a competent tech"