Replacing a motorized gas control valve with manual

[hba123]

Replacing a remote gas control valve with its manual equivalent.

My daughter has a gas coal effect fire. First, I know they're crap, she'll just use it for the occasional time that friends come round.

OK, so it has a remote (broken), a remote receiver (broken) and a motorised gas control valve (broken). The previous people lived like pigs and broke everything they set eyes on.

For the maybe ten times a year she'll use it, there's no point replacing the three broken parts for hundreds of pounds. The valve is a Mertik Maxitrol GV60. The same fire used to be sold with a manual gas control valve, a Mertik Maxitrol GV32 or GV36. Both the GV60 and the GV32/6 have the same connections for gas in and out to burner, gas to pilot light, piezo igniter and thermocouple, and all are in the same positions.

I ring up some gas safe engineers. "Oooooh Nooooo, you couldn't possibly replace it, they'd be COMPLETELY different. It would be like trying to unscrew your old boiler and replace it with a combi". Basically, I must replace all the old parts for many hundreds of pounds, or get a new fire.

I don't want to bad-mouth highly trained engineers, but how come a component that is SOLD with this fire can't be fitted to it?

 

[snowhead]

Unless the manual valve is part of a conversion kit approved and supplied by the manufacturer I doubt than any gas engineer will fit it.
There may have been other modifications done when the manual valve was upgraded by the manufacturer to the motorised valve.

Contact the manufacturer and get them to confirm in writing it is a straight swop and you may get someone to do it.

 

[hba123]

Unless the manual valve is part of a conversion kit approved and supplied by the manufacturer I doubt than any gas engineer will fit it.

Thanks snowhead

It wasn't an upgrade, it was (or at least I assume so) as supplied with the fire, as an alternative to the manual valve. The fire and both valve types all seem to be available separately so there seems no way they could supply a different fire according to the gas valve chosen.

At this point I ought to mention that one of the people who said it was not compatible was the fire manufacturer themselves.

This implies that substituting a valve for the same valve with a motor instead of a knob, supplied by the same manufacturer for the same fire required some sort of fundamental redesign of the burner or the pilot assembly. I'm trying really hard to think what this could possibly be, I really am.

At this point I'll mention a generic manual gas control valve sold by BES (cost £24), with a pilot light connection, a piezo ignitor and 'flame supervision' by means of a thermocouple connection.

'Suitable applications' given are 'Decorative fuel effect fires, but are also suitable for a wide range of domestic and commercial heating and cooking appliances. For Natural Gas and LPG.'

Someone has asked on the web page if it would be a suitable replacement for a specific
valve. Their reply is 'I have no data base to check suitability, but basically if the connections are the same size in the same place it should fit'. That's from the supplier's tech support.

So I have to ask, does everybody here really believe that a control as supplied for this fire might not be compatible? Not just those who might stand to profit from the several hundreds of pounds that following their advice would have cost me?

 

[Basher]

If the manufacturer has said not compatible, that is the end of the matter, and no self respecting engineer will fit this.
The product (fire) will have been qualified, passed its safety testing and certified with a particular configuration of components, which is what the manufacturer is allowed to manufacture, sell and support. Unless they submit further accessories etc for approval.
Despite any argument, even based on the logic you suggest, doing such a modification would put you or an engineer in the dock as being responsible in the event of any accident that might even remotely be connected with this modification.
For which reason I suspect the only people willing to supply/implement the modification you propose will not care about safety or ethical behaviour.
No axe to grind. Not a gas engineer. But spent many years in regulatory and product approvals, trying to keep designs safe!

 

[Chuck]

Sorry OP, you're not going to get the approval you seek from the pro's here.

My suggestion is to replace the current gas fire with something else. If it doesn't need to be a heater, Google "small piece of sculpture for unused fireplace" for a few ideas. Perhaps, get/commission something from a local artist so there is a story to go with it.

 

[Knappers]

Hi, as above we are restricted to working with appliances as a whole type approved unit.
Anything we work on must be CE / BS approved and swapping out components just because its possible is really not how it works. As stated above the only overriding authority would be the manufacturer.
It may be worth going through the fire manual tho as most of those automatic valves have a manual override or test feature that mamake it possible to use occasionally.

 

[hba123]

OK, well thanks all for giving mainly reasoned and considered replies. I do now understand better where you're coming from. And I've since found that there's a setting for minimum flow rate, set and sealed by the manufacturer according to the burner used, so it isn't too low for a big fire to reliably keep alight.

A forum filter says I'm spamming so I'll have to cut my post into small chunks to work out what it objects to.

 

[hba123]

But for me there's still one big question.

 

[hba123]

Still being called spammy by the forum filters so will need to try posting the rest later