Gas Solenoid Safety Valve Manufacturers

Gas Solenoid Safety Valve— even those brands that do not possess infrared technology in the grill —  have had infrared rotisseries for over 16 years.   The position of the burner in the back wall of the grill is vertical and exposed to any possible wind or rain and so uses a Safety Valve control instead of the simpler control valves that operate the inner burners in the bottom of these grills.  A safety valve is a control valve with an internal solenoid that blocks gas flow.  The solenoid has a spring that presses against the opening for gas to flow through the valve so the gas is stopped inside the controls.  These Gas Solenoid Safety Valve has a thermocouple attached to cause the opening to allow gas to flow.
Frequently we have clients contact us to say their rotisserie burner does not work or will not keep burning except if they continue to hold the control knob pressed in against the control panel.  When we press the knob in the solenoid spring is compressed past the opening in the valve body so gas flows through the safety valve to the rotisserie.  However, we have to continue to hold the valve pressed in for gas to continue moving through the valve body unless the solenoid stays open.  The spring in the soleno is will not generally allow this which is why we have the thermocouple.
Gas Solenoid Safety Valve is a very simple machine with no moving parts.  Inside the top head of the thermocouple there are different metals pressed against one another.  When these metals conduct heat against one another a very small electrical charge results.  This is not very different from when we walk on a carpet and shock someone with a touch.  This small electrical charge — this millivolt — travels through an electrical wire coated in copper to reach the bottom base of the thermocouple where it is screwed up against the base of the solenoid inside the safety valve.  The base of the Gas Solenoid Safety Valve inside the safety valve also has copper coils inside the plastic housing so the copper wire coating and coils cause the millivolt to create an electro-magnet.  So long as the tip of the Gas Solenoid Safety Valve is ht the millivolt continues to create and support the electromagnet.  We have to press the knob of the safety valve so gas flows and we hold the knob pressed in while we ignite the burner and then wait for that heat to conduct in the thermocouple and generate a electro-magnet strong enough to hold the solenoid spring compressed.  Once the electromagnet is strong enough to hold the spring of the solenoid compressed we can remove our hand; we no longer have to hold the knob pressed in for gas to flow.   The electromagnet will keep the solenoid compressed so gas flows through the valve.  This is called a safety valve because the valve will snap closed and block the flow of gas as soon as heat is no longer conducting in the tipi of the Gas Solenoid Safety Valve.  If we leave the burner for the rotisserie unwatched and somehow the burner flames blow out we do not have to worry that gas will continue to pump and pump out of the rotisserie burner because as soon as the tip of the Gas Solenoid Safety Valve is not conduction heat the electromagnet disappears and the spring presses the solenoid into place blocking the flow of gas again.s we can see in the first image above there is a pipe thread on this Solaire infrared rotisserie burner safety valve.  The threaded attachment (seen at the bottom of second image here with teflon tape around the threads) screws into the gas manifold inside the control panel of the Solaire Infrared Grill Models.  At the top of this image is a compression fitting which attaches to an aluminum gas line that runs through the body of the grill to deliver gas to the infrared rotisserie burner.  At the tip of the safety valve is an aluminum cap where the  Gas Solenoid Safety Valve  threads to the valve so the base of the thermocouple is seated in the base of the solenoid inside the valve.

Solaire safety valve disassembled to show the solenoid and spring inside and the cap that holds the Gas Solenoid Safety Valve to the solenoid.

In order to see the Gas Solenoid Safety Valve we will unscrew the thermocouple and then unscrew the cap at the tip of the Safety Valve.  It is best to remove the cap with a box-end wrench or adjustable wrench because aluminum is very soft and a hand-held wrench can warp the cap which will ruin the threads.

With the cap removed the solenoid will usually slide right out of the internal cell in the manner showing in this image.  The base is mounted to be in the cap for the thermocouple to mount in an inverted round cap and the spring with its plate that blocks gas flow facing the valve stem in the front of the valve.

If a Gas Solenoid Safety Valve is no longer functioning properly we can often remove the cap and slide-out this solenoid to see what kind of damage has occurred.  Usually an overheated grill that has caught on fire or has bad convectional circulation will have overheated the solenoid and the plastic housing around the copper coils will have been irrevocably damaged by the heat.  This is usually very clear to the naked eye.  Over-heating the solenoid will show an obvious warping to the plastic housing.  Also a lessor damage can leave dirt, grime or over-heated lubrication in the housing for the solenoid which will need to be cleaned in order for the solenoid to move freely and easily manipulated by the electromagnetic force.