"Jeremy Taylor" wrote in message
m...
Managed to fix my gas boiler last night - the pilot light had shrunk
to a tiny, tiny flame due to the hole filling with crud. I cleaned out
the hole and today it is working fine.

However - the flame sensor and pilot light assembly was in a bit of a
state - rusty, covered in crap. Where can I buy new bits? I don't
suppose B&Q stocks this type of thing - they wouldn't want to
encourage DIY on gas boilers I'm sure. But I'm not keen to pay some
bozo to come and change these rudimentary parts.

The boiler is pretty old - Gloworm I think. Must be 15-20 years old.

Are there suppliers willing/able to sell to Joe Public?

My boiler is a similarly aged Gloworm. The flame sensor is, hopefully,
replaceable by a universal replacement thermocouple which can be obtained at
B&Q for a few pounds (I replaced mine recently) - they fail quite
regularly. The pilot light assembly is an entirely different matter. They
do get rusty but if yours is actually falling to bits, you may have a
problem. The pilot thermocouple is probably in series with the other safety
device, the boiler overtemperature cutout. These can fail as well.

The pilot system is generally fail-safe, ie the problem is keeping it going,
not stopping it going when it shouldn't be. If the pilot light is staying
alight, and the boiler is operating correctly, I would leave well alone. I
hope, when you had it to bits, you gave the heat exchanger fins a good clean
out. Allowing these to soot up is a Bad Thing. It would be worth buying a
universal thermocouple as it's bound to go when the shops are shut!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)