Bit of a head-scratcher today. Couple of days ago I was called to look at a newish Ferroli boiler[1] (DOMIcompact F24D) which seemed to have its gas valve packed up: went through normal start-up sequence up to point of
sparking to light the gas but gas was there none. Checked 240V on wiring to gas valve present when it was sparking to boiler electrics OK; checked resistance of solenoid - open circuit.

Today picked up new gas check valve. Sanity check: test resistance of coil. Open bloody circuit! Call Ferroli[2] who assure me coil resistance should be 5.9 MegOhm!! (Yes, Megs not K - I asked, tech bloke assured it was so.) My
multimeter only goes up to 2M FSD. Could have put the megger on it -technically that resistance would have passed an insulation resistance test! WTF: even at DC that would only pass 40 micro-amps from 230V; with
ac the inductance would make it less still. How does the damn' thing even work? Or has it some electronics in it?

Work it did, though: gas, heating, happy customer.


[1] funnily enough one I'd been asked to commission a few years ago by the unqualified cowboys installing it. Usual response: "I've spent many hundreds of pounds and weeks of my time getting and maintaining my gas
qualifications, and you want me to put that on the line ticketing up this boiler for you for HOW MUCH DID YOU SAY YOU WERE OFFERING?"

[2] 8p/minute 0871 number which they spun out with blah blah press 1 for this etc and no proper mobile-friendly geographical number for engineers. So think of that if you're thinking of buying a Ferroli (as I
pointed out to their phone droids!)

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