Bradford White Display Codes: Lockout, Sensor & Control (62, 64, 110)

The control codes in this article are the eF Series display faults that blame the controller itself, its power supply, its sensors or its fan proving — rather than the burner. Two control generations are covered and kept separate throughout: the Honeywell Integrated Control generation (codes 32, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65) and the ICON HD 'Battleship Grey' generation (codes 62, 67, 80, 110, 137), which reuses some numbers with different meanings. The headline member codes 62, 64 and 110 each get a full section, joined by the power-input family and the sensor and high-limit faults a technician actually meets. Codes 123, 981, F4, FF and F20 are handled in the closing section, where they belong: one is documented in a single Bradford White guide, and the rest appear in no Bradford White document at all.

Two control generations, and the rule that decides who may reset

Bradford White's eF Series has shipped with two different electronic controls, and control-code diagnosis starts by knowing which one is on the tank. The earlier Honeywell Integrated Control uses two-digit codes and a strict lockout philosophy: every code except number 4 (low flame sense) causes a lockout with 'Service Needed' on the display, and the codes divide into two soft lockouts a user may reset (62 and 63) and hard lockouts resettable only in Service Mode — a mode entered by pressing Temperature Up and Select together for 3 seconds, then holding Lockout Reset for 3 seconds, a procedure Bradford White labels for service personnel only. The later ICON HD control (fan-assisted ICON HD models, serial prefix XC, March 2021 and later) uses two- and three-digit codes and introduces a staging idea the Honeywell control lacks: HOlD conditions, shown in capitals on the display, which are faults the control is watching but has not yet escalated — a hold becomes a lockout only if the reading stays out of range. It also separates the numbers you see from the numbers it stores: ignition failure displays 110 but files 109 in its Diagnostic History. Almost every confusion in third-party code lists comes from mixing these two generations, so the sections below tag every code with its control.

Error code 62: one number, two unrelated control faults

Code 62 is the strongest argument for generation discipline on the eF Series, because it is a headline code on both controls and means something completely different on each. On the Honeywell generation, 62 means the maximum number of ignition retries was detected — a soft lockout ending a run of failed ignition trials, resettable by the user in User Mode with the lower right Lockout Reset button, with the control automatically attempting 3 relights every hour in the meantime. On the ICON HD generation, 62 has nothing to do with ignition: it is a HOLD meaning fan speed not proved — the control cannot confirm the blower is running at the speed the firing rate requires. The ICON HD Quick Service Guide spells out the escalation: if the fan speed value stays out of range, the hold changes to a lockout — and the lockout number it names is 123, which is defined only in that single guide (see the closing section). The field response differs accordingly. A Honeywell 62 sends you to the gas chain and ignition parts. An ICON HD 62 sends you to the vent and the blower: a blocked or crushed vent raises the blower's load, a failing blower motor or its harness drops the speed signal, and a hold caught early may clear when the vent does. Resetting a Honeywell 62 is documented user procedure; an ICON HD 62 hold is the control asking you to find out why it cannot prove its fan before it stops being polite about it.

Error code 64: electronics failure on the Honeywell control

Code 64 is the Honeywell generation's verdict on itself: electronics failure. The integrated control has run its internal monitoring and found its own electronics faulty, and like every code in that generation except number 4, it produces a lockout with 'Service Needed' displayed. There is no component-level story to chase first — 64 is not a sensor reading or a sequence failure, it is the controller reporting that it can no longer trust itself, which on a gas appliance is exactly when it should stop. The realistic causes are the control board itself: component failure, heat or moisture damage in the control compartment, or power-event damage, which is why a technician will still verify the incoming supply (a control fed chronically bad power can die reporting it) using the neighboring codes in this article — a history showing 58, 59 or 61 events before the 64 tells a power-quality story, while a clean history points at the board alone. Resetting 64 requires Service Mode, which Bradford White reserves for service personnel, and even a successful reset without a board decision is poor practice: an intermittently failing control that resets today can fail mid-cycle tomorrow. Expect the repair to be control replacement, and expect a good technician to check supply voltage and grounding as part of the job so the new control does not inherit the conditions that killed the old one.

Error code 110: the ICON HD ignition lockout, read as a control event

Code 110 is the ICON HD control's ignition failure lockout, and it rewards reading as a piece of control behaviour rather than a simple 'no flame' message. When the main burner cannot be lit, or lit burners cannot prove flame through the ignition trials, the control declares soft lockout 110 — the display shows 110, while the Diagnostic History stores the event as 109, a split that has confused more than one owner reading history codes against an internet chart. Bradford White's two ICON HD documents differ slightly on the trial count before lockout — the Quick Service Guide describes ignition failure after four trials, the service manual describes three attempts followed by a 15-minute wait and three more — but they agree on the class and the cure's limits: 110 is a soft lockout, and its documented user reset is to hold the lower right Reset button for 3 seconds in User Mode. The underlying causes are the standard ignition chain — gas supply, igniter, flame rod, blocked burner — detailed in this site's ignition article from the Honeywell side. The control-side lesson of 110 is the waiting behaviour: a control that pauses 15 minutes between attempt blocks is managing gas accumulation and component stress, and an owner power-cycling the unit to hurry it along is defeating a designed safety rhythm. One documented reset after checking gas and vent; a second 110 is a service call.

Error codes 58, 59 and 61: when the control blames its power supply

Three Honeywell-generation codes point away from the water heater entirely, at the electricity feeding it. Code 58 is an AC line frequency error — the control finds the power signal too noisy or the frequency incorrect; the Quick Service Guide phrases the same code as a power supply problem. Code 59 is line voltage too low or too high. Code 61 is a DC output voltage unstable — the control's internal conversion of that AC supply into the DC its electronics run on is out of tolerance. Together they form a diagnostic ladder: 59 says the incoming voltage is measurably wrong, 58 says the waveform or frequency is wrong (classic on generator power, failing inverters, or seriously disturbed building supplies), and 61 says either the incoming power is bad enough to destabilize the control's supply stage, or that stage itself is failing. The correct first instrument is a multimeter on the heater's outlet, not a parts catalog: measure voltage idle and under load, and if the building supply is off, the repair belongs to an electrician or the utility, and no control replacement will fix it. These codes also matter historically — a control that later dies with a 64 often shows 58/59/61 events in its stored history first, which is why technicians read the history before condemning the board. Owners on generator backup should mention it: an eF control that faults only during outages is reporting the generator, not itself. Two practical corollaries are worth knowing before the technician arrives. First, these codes rarely damage anything by themselves — the control is refusing to run a gas appliance on power it cannot trust, which is protective behaviour, and repeatedly power-cycling to clear a 58 can mask a genuinely deteriorating building supply that will eventually take the control with it. Second, if the voltage measures correctly at the outlet with no load but sags when the blower starts, the problem is circuit resistance — a long run, a shared circuit, a tired breaker — and that distinction decides whether the fix is an electrician's hour or a utility call. Record which appliances were running when the code appeared; load-correlated voltage faults are diagnosed from that note faster than from any single measurement.

Error code 80: the ICON HD high-limit hard lockout

Code 80 is the ICON HD generation's overheat verdict: a high limit overheat condition, a HARD lockout raised when the tank-top water temperature exceeds 207 degrees Fahrenheit and the ECO high-limit function shuts the heater down. Unlike the soft lockouts in this article, 80 is deliberately not user-resettable — Bradford White's service manual procedure is to let the water temperature fall to approximately 120 degrees and have a qualified service agent place the water heater back in operation, resetting the lockout in Service Mode only after the problem is corrected. The causes are the short list of things that let a tank run away: a temperature sensor reading low (so the control keeps firing a tank that is already hot — the ICON HD's sensor alert chain, 172 degrading to 93, exists to catch exactly this), a control output stuck on, or a genuine control failure. The Honeywell generation's equivalent is code 65, water over 200 degrees, likewise a hard lockout with a Service Mode-only reset, and the parallel is instructive: both generations treat proven overheating as the one fault class where the manufacturer removes the reset button from the owner's reach entirely. If your display shows 80 (or 65), the correct actions are to leave the heater off, let it cool, and make the call — hot water at 207 degrees is a scalding and pressure hazard, and the T&P valve is the last line of defense, not a diagnostic tool.

Error code 32: temperature sensor fault, and why sensor codes protect the tank

Code 32 on the Honeywell generation means the lower sensor readings are faulty — the control is receiving lower tank temperature data it cannot believe, whether out of range, open, or shorted. The ICON HD generation splits the same idea finer: alert 172 for water temperature sensor resistance invalid, which becomes fault 93 if the resistance stays out of range, alongside its other holds. Sensor codes are easy to dismiss as 'just a sensor,' but on a high-efficiency tank the temperature sensors are the control's only eyes: firing decisions, high-limit protection (code 65/80 above) and efficiency all depend on them, which is why the controls lock out rather than estimate. Diagnosis is a resistance measurement against Bradford White's sensor temperature chart at a known water temperature, plus a harness and connector inspection — corrosion at the sensor connector is a common real-world cause, especially in damp utility rooms. The owner-level contribution is limited to noting context: did 32 arrive after plumbing work, a leak, or a power event? Sensor replacement itself is technician work, partly because the sensor wells and harness live inside the control compartment, and partly because a misread tank can overheat — the very event the sensor system exists to prevent. A control showing sensor faults and overheat history together should be treated as an overheat risk until proven otherwise, not as two unrelated nuisances.

Codes 123, 981, F4, FF and F20: named here, defined nowhere we can stand behind

This closing section exists because these five codes are searched for alongside real Bradford White codes, and the honest answer differs by code. 123 is the near miss: the ICON HD Quick Service Guide — a genuine Bradford White document — defines it as fan speed not proved, purge-rate proving failed, a hard lockout that follows hold 62. But no second Bradford White document we could check defines 123, and this site's rule is two manufacturer sources or no published meaning, so 123 is named here as the documented-in-one-guide escalation of hold 62 without a full section of its own; if your ICON HD unit stores 123, the practical path is the same vent-and-blower diagnosis as the 62 hold, by a technician. The other four fail a harder test: 981, F4, FF and F20 appear in no Bradford White water heater document checked — not the Quick Service Guides, not the EF or ICON HD service manuals, not any Infiniti manual. The Infiniti K Series does run an F-family, but it contains F2, F3, F7, F8, F9 and FA, not F4 or F20; the only trace of 981 anywhere points at a different manufacturer's control in a forum thread. If a display seems to show one of these, photograph it — segmented displays make 8s of 9s and 0s of 8s — then read the stored history, because the code the control filed is the one a technician can use. Publishing invented meanings for them would be easy and wrong, so this page does not.

Key takeaways

• Identify the control generation before quoting any code — serial prefix XC (March 2021 onward) means ICON HD, where 62 is a fan hold; earlier eF units are Honeywell, where 62 is an ignition lockout.
• Hard lockouts (64, 65, 80) reset only in Service Mode, which Bradford White reserves for service personnel — if a control code needs that mode, the diagnosis is a technician's job by design.
• When a control blames power (58, 59, 61), measure the outlet before condemning the board — and mention generator backup, a classic source of frequency errors, when you call.

Resetting the Bradford White water heater

Each Bradford White system has its own documented reset, and they are not interchangeable. ICON gas control (tank): a TCO trip on TTW models resets by rotating the temperature knob to minimum for at least 6 seconds before returning it to the desired setting, and several sensor/valve faults direct the gas valve reset described in the model's Quick Service Guide; after any knob-OFF, wait until the LED goes out before relighting. eF Series, Honeywell generation: soft lockouts (62, 63) reset in User Mode with the lower right Lockout Reset button, and the control retries by itself 3 times every hour; all other codes are hard lockouts resettable only in Service Mode (Temperature Up + Select for 3 seconds, then Lockout Reset for 3 seconds) — service personnel only. eF ICON HD: soft lockout 110 resets by holding the lower right Reset button 3 seconds in User Mode; hard lockouts such as 80 are Service Mode only. Infiniti GS/GR: hard locks clear with the Power button after the cause is remedied; soft locks clear themselves when the condition clears. Infiniti K: press and hold ON/OFF for more than 3 seconds. One reset after fixing a cause is diagnosis; repeated resets are how a fault becomes damage.

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Facts on this page were checked against manufacturer documentation: bradfordwhitecorp.s3.amazonaws.com · res.cloudinary.com · media.distributordatasolutions.com · bradfordwhitecorp.s3.amazonaws.com · docs.bradfordwhite.com · mans.io · www.manualshelf.com · www.manualshelf.com · homeappliance.manualsonline.com · mans.io · homeappliance.manualsonline.com · manuzoid.com · www.manualshelf.com · www.manualshelf.com · manuals.plus · xrefs.plumbersstock.com · manualmachine.com · mans.io · mans.io · mans.io · mans.io