I bought a Flavel Misermatic gas fire in Nov 2004 and had it fited by a gas engineer. It worked ok for about 6 months and then developed a fault. It would work ok for a while and then start making bubbling noises in the flames before going out. This only happened on full power and not on half power We would have to wait about 5 mins before re-lighting.
The guy who fitted it would not come out and the shop where I bought it went out of business. After many enquiries I made contact with the manufacturers as it was still under warranty. They sent an engineer out who turned it off and went awya for 2 weeks (he ordered a spare part). We had to hendure 2 weeks of freezing temptures. He return and replaced one of the ceramic plate (which he had broken) and nothing else. So we waited 2 weeks due to his fault though he made it look that the gas fire needed another part.
Anyway, he could not work out why the gas fire was going out. Just by co-incident I turned on the hot water; this dropped the gas pressure at the gas fire. He homed in on the problem; the combi boiler was causing the problem. He went and looked at the boiler and said that the piping to it was wrong. Apprantly, the combi boiler had 15mm gas pipe going to it which was not enough. So when we turned on water, the boiler was taking excessive amount of gas and the gas fire was being starved of gas.
He offered this explanation and left saying that our boiler was to blame. The gas fire worked ok for 3 months. It has started to go out again now after 3 months.
What I do not understand is that the gas fire worked perfectly for first 6 months although we were using the boiler constantly for CH and hot water. And again after the engineer had been, it worked ok for 3 months.
Did the engineer give me incorrect info? Is the 15mm piping to the combi boiler incorrect (I am not even sure what size it is - boiler has always worked and BG cover it for service)? We never had any such problems with previous gas fires.