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S

SimonNitschke

Hi everyone,

My family has just taken on a rental in Scotland. We've moved from Australia and don't have experience with gas central heating at all.

The place we rented has a Sime Friendly Format 80 that does instant hot water and central heating. The agent had it inspected just before we moved in, and it was running perfectly.

The place also has a pre-paid gas meter and that's also new to us - long story short, we learnt the hard way about how prepaid gas works, and we ran out.

Since sorting the gas, the boiler wont fire up - we've read the manual and followed the instructions, but with no success. We have gas at the cook top, so the gas is defiantly flowing.

Am I right in thinking that the boiler has shut it self down when it tried to fire with no gas, and needs to be reset some how? Is there something simple that I can do, like lift a cover and press a button or do we need an Engineer?

Also, there are two lights on the front of the unit - one green one that comes on with power, and a second red one right above it - the manual doesn't say what the red light is for - is it lit when the flame is on, or is it an error light? I didn't pay attention to it when the boiler was functioning, and wish I had.

And finally, when we were trying to get it lit, I turned on a small black tap below the boiler and could hear water flowing fast and the pressure gauge shot up past 2 bar momentarily. I turned it off, but it then fell below 1 bar - is this small tap used to regulate the pressure, and should I bump it on slightly to return the pressure to about 1 bar?

Thanks very much!
 
Simple fix:

The dial on the boiler - the on /off dial.
Turn it all the way to the right and turn it back to the on position.
That should re-set the boiler.

The boiler has gone to 'lock out' due to ignition failure, because of gas supply problems.

That should sort you out.

If it doesn't - you may have to call someone in.

I must add, as a fellow Australian, I would be hesitant in renting a place with a Sime boiler.
But then again, I make a living out of replacing the overpriced parts in them and have done so for the last 20 years....

....so there is an upside
 
Thanks Oz, that sorted it - we're away again.

I guess I'll be active on the forum, now that we're in charge of this Sime ;-)
Not to worry, we had little choice of rentals, so I don't think knowing it's issues would have changed the outcome.

Any ideas regarding the small tap below the boiler? I turned it on when we were stuffing around and the pressure shot up - I've tweaked it a bit to get it to stay around 1 bar. Have I messed with something I shouldn't have there?

Thanks again!
 

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