# Forum Home Renovation Heating & Cooling  Brivis Buffalo 20 problems

## xris

Hi all,
Just joined this forum and spent the last 2 hrs reading about brivis woes!!
Didn't quite see my problem though. 
Heater (Brivis Buffalo 20:  in a rental property) 
fires up OK,
fan goes on
and warm air blows through ducts.
5-10 mins later the burners go out 
(room hasn't reached the set temp)
unit tries to fire up again
ie the electronic pilot lights the pilot,
but it goes out after a sec or two
the burners do not light up again
(suggesting gas is no longer getting to the burners) 
Had a plumber look at it
he said an LED was flashing 3 times on ignition
called Brivis
they suggested resetting by turning off/on at mains
this didn't resolve anything. 
Plumber then said the thermostat (old fashioned mercury type) was shot
so replaced it with a new electronic one (honeywell RTH221B)
took a while to work out the wiring
(two wires from thermostat and two wires from a separate switch that turns on the fan)
connected the old thermostat wires to Rh and W terminals
and the two fan wires to Y and G terminals 
The unit fired up as before
(suggesting the wring of the new thermostat is OK: or is it?)
then it went out as before
and tried to relight it self as before.
I could see the pilot come on for a sec or two and go out again
(ie no gas delivery to the burners)
No obvious error messages (little spanners etc) on the new controller
but something was flashing on/off
(letters too small for me to read, but the tenant said it says 'return') 
I still need to check the return air filter
to make sure they are not clogged with gunk
and the ducts for leaks/failing duct tape etc 
BUT I would appreciate any other advice
I'm reasonably handy.
Thanks

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## plum

The unit may be shutting down through an overheat situation, check return air filter, could be a cracked heat exchange, possibly a faulty overheat sensor, fan may not be be pushing enough heat through. How old is the heater?

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## xris

> How old is the heater?

  Thanks,
Not sure about age,
I think we replaced it some 7-11 yrs ago.
does anyone know when the buffalo 20 first came on the market?  
 Will be checking return air filters and heat exchanger ( I gather I'm looking for variations in flame color)

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## xris

I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify the wiring of the Brivis Buffalo 20 unit to the honeywell RTH221B thermostat. 
The more I think about it the more I believe we changed over from an old (20+yrs) Vulcan model that had separate switches for the fan (ordinary electric switch) and heater (thermostat) because the are some wires running in the same conduit as the thermostat wires (from switches/thermostat to unit) that were never connected to the newer Brivis. 
So I suspect the Brivis buffalo is controlled by only two wires that ran from the old mercury type thermostat (hence I've wired the new thermostat with in two dead end wires!!)

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## plum

Brivis heaters that I know of have only the two wires, except one I saw recently that had a seperate non- Brivis timer.

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## johnstonfencing

If it helps I recently just installed a new Brivis Buffalo 20 at home with a brivis manual control, this only had the two red and white wires to be connected.  Happy to be corrected but I also read somewhere that you can only use a manual controller, as I currently have, or a brivis programmable controller! Not meaning you cant use other brands but brivis's networker controller with it's fancy functions can't be used on this model so maybe your controller doesn't need to have those extra wires connected because as you say they may be just dead and not doing anything.

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## ozheat

If you want to test if it is the heater or themostat, you can bypass the themostat by bridging R & W at the heater.  
The RETURN on the thermostat is the programmed period it is currently running at.

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## gomesy

hey all, 
just joined today, need help with teh same heater.
got it about 2 years ago, dosent seem to be pushing out much heat.
the fans on full, but still the same. anyone can help? 
cheers,
Gomesy

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