Bradford White Display Codes: Ignition & Flame (4, 6, 23, 24, 57)

On a Bradford White eF Series high-efficiency water heater, ignition is a supervised sequence, not a spark and a hope: the integrated control proves the vent path, opens the gas valve, fires the ignition, and then must see a believable flame signal through the flame rod — before, during and after the burner runs. The display codes in this article are the Honeywell-generation control's ignition and flame-supervision family: 4 (low flame sense), 6 (flame out of sequence), 23 (flame before ignition), 24 (flame after the cycle), 57 (flame rod shorted to ground), and the two soft lockouts, 62 (maximum retries) and 63 (maximum recycles), that the sequence ends in when it cannot succeed. Codes 10, 11, 20 and 7 are dealt with honestly in the closing section — they are not eF display codes at all.

How the eF Series proves ignition — and why flame codes come in pairs

The eF control watches the flame rod across the whole cycle, which is why its ignition faults come in mirror-image pairs. Before ignition, the rod must report NO flame: if it reports flame anyway, the control stops with 23 (flame detected before ignition) or the broader out-of-sequence code 6. During the trial for ignition the rod must report a strong enough flame current; a weak reading is code 4, the only code in this family that does not lock the heater out. If ignition fails outright through the control's retry sequence, the result is 62, maximum retries. If the burner lights but keeps losing its flame, the control recycles — relights — until the recycle limit produces 63. After a successful cycle the rod must go quiet again; flame still reported once the cycle completes is 24. And shorting the whole sensing circuit to ground produces 57. Reading whichever of these is stored — the control keeps up to 10 previous codes in its history, scrolled with the Temperature Down button — tells a technician which stage of the sequence failed, which is why clearing codes before anyone reads them destroys the evidence. All of these are Honeywell-generation codes; the later ICON HD control reports ignition failure as 110 instead, covered in the closing section.

Error code 4: low flame sense signal

Code 4 means the flame rod is reporting a flame current below what the control accepts as proof of a healthy burner flame. It is unique in this family: Bradford White's EF documentation states that all error codes except number 4 cause the control to go into lockout and display 'Service Needed' — with 4, the heater keeps running while flagging that its flame proof is marginal, which makes 4 an early warning rather than a shutdown. The causes are the slow degradations of a flame-sensing circuit: a flame rod filmed with oxidation or combustion deposits, a rod whose position in the flame has shifted, a poor burner ground path (the flame current returns through the burner and chassis, so corrosion anywhere in that path weakens it), or a genuinely weak flame from a scaled or dirty burner. The fix sequence is mechanical: clean or replace the flame rod, verify the burner ground, and measure the flame current in microamps against the control's requirement. Because 4 does not lock out, owners often ignore it for months; the risk is that a marginal signal degrades into nuisance 62 and 63 lockouts on the coldest morning of the year. Rod cleaning is at the edge of owner work — it sits inside the combustion compartment — so most owners should treat a recurring 4 as a scheduled technician visit rather than a DIY project.

Error code 6: flame sensed out of normal sequence

Code 6 is the control's general out-of-sequence flame fault: flame was sensed before the control opened the gas valve, or after it closed it — flame reported at a time when the sequence says none can legitimately exist. It overlaps the more specific code 23 (before ignition) and code 24 (after the cycle), and which one a given control revision stores depends on exactly when the impossible signal appeared. The physical causes divide into two camps with very different urgency. In the sensing camp, a flame rod shorted or contaminated enough to leak a false signal, or damaged rod wiring, convinces the control a flame exists when the burner is cold. In the gas camp, a gas valve that is not fully sealing lets a real flame — or enough gas to sustain a lazy residual flame at the burner — persist outside the commanded window. The diagnostic path is to establish which camp you are in: with the burner cold and the gas valve commanded closed, is there an actual flame or gas smell at the burner, or only an electrical lie? The first answer means the heater comes out of service until a licensed technician replaces the valve; the second means rod and wiring work, still technician territory because it involves the combustion compartment and gas valve connections. Do not respond to a 6 by resetting repeatedly — an out-of-sequence flame report is the control's core safety function working as designed.

Error code 23: flame detected before ignition

Code 23 is the pre-ignition member of the false-flame pair: during the part of the sequence before the ignition trial — when the gas valve is still closed and the burner must be dark — the flame circuit reports flame, and the control refuses to start. Bradford White lists 23 in the Honeywell-generation EF error definitions alongside 24, its post-cycle twin. Causes mirror code 6 but are weighted toward the sensing side: a flame rod shorted to ground or fouled enough to conduct, moisture or debris bridging the rod insulator, or a control input fault. A genuinely leaking gas valve remains possible and is the dangerous version: gas passing a closed valve can maintain a small flame or an ignitable mixture in the chamber, which is precisely what the pre-ignition check exists to catch. Owner checks are limited to observation — is there any smell of gas, any sign of heat or flame at the burner with the heater idle — and the answer decides the callout priority. There is no user reset strategy for 23 beyond the hard-lockout Service Mode reset that Bradford White reserves for service personnel, and using it without finding why the control saw flame defeats the protection. A technician will test the rod circuit for shorts to ground, verify the valve seals under pressure, and only then clear the lockout.

Error code 24: flame detected after a heating cycle completes

Code 24 completes the pair: the burner ran a normal heating cycle, the control closed the gas valve — and the flame sensor still reports flame after the cycle should be over. On the Honeywell-generation eF control this is a lockout fault with 'Service Needed' displayed. Read literally, the code describes gas still burning after shutdown, and the most consequential cause is a gas valve that closes slowly or leaks through its seat: debris on the valve seat, a weakening valve operator, or a valve at end of life. The benign alternatives live in the sensing circuit — a flame rod circuit that holds a phantom signal, through contamination, a wiring fault or a control input problem. Distinguishing them is a hands-on test: a technician watches whether flame physically persists at the burner after shutdown and pressure-tests the valve's shutoff. Until that test is done, treat 24 as the dangerous version. Do not keep resetting and running a heater that reports flame after shutdown; if the valve truly passes gas, each cycle ends with unburned or still-burning gas outside the control's supervision, and the lockout is the only thing standing between that and a much worse outcome. Owner action stops at switching the unit off and making the call — valve replacement is licensed work, full stop.

Error code 57: flame rod shorted to ground

Code 57 is the most specific ignition code Bradford White publishes for the eF Series: the flame rod is shorted to ground. (The company's Quick Service Guide words the same code as the spark rod shorted to ground — on this control the ignition and flame-sensing hardware share the fault reporting, and both documents agree on the number and the short-to-ground meaning.) A shorted rod corrupts every decision the control makes about flame: depending on the control's input design it can masquerade as flame present or destroy a real flame signal, which is why the control stops rather than guessing. The physical causes are mechanical damage — a rod bent or corroded into contact with the burner or chassis, a cracked rod insulator, chafed rod wiring touching metal, or conductive debris bridging the rod to ground after years of combustion deposits. Diagnosis is a continuity and inspection job: isolate the rod, test it to ground, and inspect the lead end to end. The fix is rod or harness replacement inside the combustion compartment, which is licensed technician work — the rod's position in the flame and its insulator integrity are what stand between the control and a false flame proof, so this is not a part to bend back into shape and hope. A 57 that appears after recent service is worth mentioning to the technician: disturbed wiring during other work is a common trigger.

Error code 62: maximum number of retries detected (soft lockout)

Code 62 is where straightforward ignition failure ends up: the control ran its full retry sequence — repeated trials for ignition — without ever establishing a proven flame, and locked out. Bradford White classifies 62 as a SOFT lockout, and it is one of only two codes in this family with a user-level reset: in User Mode, press the lower right button under Lockout Reset. The control also helps by itself, making 3 relight attempts every hour while in soft lockout, which is why a heater with 62 sometimes recovers on its own when the cause was transient — a momentary gas supply dip, for example. The standing causes of a hard 62 are the ignition chain itself: gas supply off or pressure low, a failed or weak igniter, a flame rod too dirty to prove the flame that actually lit, a blocked burner, or a gas valve not opening. The owner's contribution is the external chain — verify the gas shutoffs to the unit are open and other gas appliances work — plus exactly one reset after those checks. If 62 returns, stop: the soft lockout's hourly retries mean the control has already tried far more times than you should, and the remaining causes all live behind the combustion compartment door. Give the technician the history codes as well; a 62 preceded by weeks of code 4 tells a flame-sense story, while a 62 appearing suddenly points at gas supply or the igniter.

Error code 63: maximum number of ignition recycles detected (soft lockout)

Code 63 is 62's subtler sibling: ignition succeeds, but the flame keeps failing during operation, and after the maximum number of recycles — light, lose flame, relight — the control locks out softly rather than cycle forever. The distinction matters for diagnosis: a 63 heater can light, so gas supply and igniter are broadly working; what fails is flame stability or flame proof under running conditions. The documented suspects are a marginal flame rod signal (often with code 4 in the history), a poor burner ground that worsens with heat and vibration, gas pressure that sags when the burner is at full rate, a partially blocked burner giving an unstable flame picture, or venting effects disturbing the flame. Like 62, 63 resets in User Mode with the lower right Lockout Reset button, and like 62 it deserves one reset after external checks — gas on, vent termination clear, condensate draining (a backing-up condensate line can drown a flame picture on high-efficiency models). A repeating 63 is a measurement job: flame current under running conditions, inlet gas pressure static and firing, and ground integrity, all licensed technician work. Note what 62 and 63 together tell you about the control's philosophy: it would rather lock out and be reset by a human than keep a questionable burner cycling unattended — repeated manual resets argue with that philosophy, and the control is right.

The codes this article does not cover — 10, 11, 20, 7 — and the ICON HD 110

Search engines and third-party lists attach several numbers to the eF Series that Bradford White's own documents do not, and honesty requires naming them. Codes 10, 11 and 20 do not exist on any eF display in the Bradford White documents checked — the Honeywell Quick Service Guide, the EF service manual definitions, the ICON HD Quick Service Guide and the EF I&O manual. They are real Bradford White codes, but on a different product: the Infiniti GS/GR tankless line, where 10 means flame lost eight times, 11 means ignition failed ten times and 20 is the high limit overheat switch — with 11 and 10 also appearing on the Infiniti L Series as no ignition and air/exhaust blockage. A bare number 7 is likewise not an eF display code; 7 exists on Bradford White equipment only as a gas-control flash count. If your eF display genuinely shows an ignition failure on a newer unit, it is probably the ICON HD control, whose ignition code is 110: the main burner could not be lit or could not prove flame through its ignition trials — the display shows 110, the Diagnostic History stores 109, and its soft-lockout reset is holding the lower right Reset button for 3 seconds in User Mode. The ICON HD equivalents of the false-flame codes are also renumbered (105, flame detected out of sequence). Diagnose by the control in front of you, never by a search snippet.

Key takeaways

• Read the stored history before resetting anything: on the Honeywell eF control, Temperature Down scrolls up to 10 previous codes, and a 4 sitting under a 62 changes the repair from ignition parts to flame-sense service.
• 62 and 63 are the only user-resettable codes in this family — one reset after checking the gas chain is diagnosis; repeated resets just re-run a failing ignition sequence against a safety control.
• If a code list online gives your eF Series a code 10, 11 or 20, it is describing the Infiniti tankless line — check which Bradford White product the list belongs to before ordering parts.

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