Economaire range of warm air heaters:

The Economaire is a “room-sealed” warm air boiler, meaning it draws fresh air for combustion in though the flue tube and does not need a separate and sometimes draughty, air vent to outside. The combustion chamber inside is fully sealed from the interior of the house which is an improvement in safety, and the fan-powered flue can now run horizontally through an  outside wall instead of having to run vertically up and through the roof (as with older Johnson and Starley models).

Further, there is no permanent pilot light to blow out; the boiler has automatic ignition and could be ordered with a high performance electrostatic air filter. The Economaire is however a non-condensing boiler and all Economaire models have been discontinued and replaced with the high efficiency “Warmcair” condensing warm air boiler range.

For water heating, the Intejan hot water circulator was available as an optional extra, which was also room sealed (inside the same boiler case) and shared the combustion air supply and flue with the warm air unit.

Despite all the advantages above, the Economaire is rapidly becoming my least-favourite Johnson and Starley boiler to attend! Mainly due to its unpleasant habit of intermittently locking-out and showing error 6 (“flame failure”) then behaving perfectly when I attend and test it, but also because the air distribution fan is now obsolete and currently (as of 12/2/24) cannot be repaired by fitting a new motor as the new motors being supplied by REMCO do not work with the fan speed control electronics inside the Economaire. As the majority of breakdown calls I get for the Economaire are for one or other of these faults, I find myself reluctant to attend any Economaire at the moment as I can’t guarantee to fix it.

Common faults and fixes:

1) Red “Lockout” light illuminated

This broadly means “something went wrong”, and there is a little viewing hole in the main front panel. The electronic control panel has a red LED display visible through the hole. Sometimes it is obscured by a build-up of dust if not regularly cleaned during annual servicing but can be cleaned with say, a child’s paintbrush. A single character is displayed which can be looked up on a chart and tells us the boiler is either working correctly or gives a fault code. The common status codes are as follows:

0 Boiler is alight and running correctly

3 Air pressure switch fail - usually the combustion air fan failed actually

E Air circulator fan fail

Nothing displayed at all - power turned off or dust obscuring the display

Lots more error codes are printed on the cover plate on the control board (as in this photo) and more details can be looked up in the boiler manual, but none can be fixed by the layman. A warm air technician will need to be called out. Here is a screenshot of the chart in the manual giving more information. (Hopefully J&S won’t mind me reproducing it here.)

2) Combustion air fan failure

When the combustion air fan fails, the boiler remains silent and refuses to run. If the Economaire also has the Intejan water circulator, both will fail and hot water also ceases to work too. Both warm air and hot water with this appliance depend on the shared combustion air fan so both functions failing together indicates something shared by both has failed, and the only moving and shared part is the combustion air fan. The LED shows the number “3”.

3) Gas valve failure

The gas control valve has an electromagnetic coil which fails, and also a control board fitted directly to the gas valve. Either part can fail and the status LED will probably display any number between 4 and 9. 

4) Control panel failure

There is a number of failures the control panel suffers from, ranging from no life at all shown in the boiler, not even anything on the LED status display, to the panel not responding to the room thermostat and failing to light the burners, or lighting the burners but failing to start the warm air circulation fan. Make sure the power switch on the wall is still turned on, and check the the fuse has not blown. I keep a control panel in the van for this type of Economaire breakdown.

5) Air fan running all the time and boiler refusing to light

This is usually related to the Thermista-Stat, or room thermostat. It has a “Summer air circulation” setting at one end of its travel and this may simply have been selected, which won’t be obvious to anyone peering at the boiler wondering what has gone wrong. Check the room thermostat! If it is set correctly it may be faulty, which can be diagnosed by removing the room stat wires from the boiler and connecting terminals 8 and 10. If the fan still runs all the time the control board needs replacing. If the boiler now fires normally, replace the Thermista-Stat room thermostat.

Other than the above, the Economaire seems to be quite a reliable boiler. I get very few calls to repair them. Servicing one properly is very time consuming though, especially when the Intejan water heater is present. Two whole appliances inside one case to deal with, actually.

If your Economaire needs repairing, call or text me on 07866 766364

Mike

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