I have an old oil-fired boiler. Just recently it has started to lockout/fail at random times (once a month or so) and I would like to start monitoring/detecting the lockout.
The only indicator I can see is a ‘lockout’ LED on the boiler control panel down in the cellar.
Any ideas on how I could integrate this signal into HA so that I can generate an alert on lockout?
The house has a lot of zigbee everwhere so a zigbee relay on the lockout LED circuit maybe?
Ideas welcome
My best advice is to get the boiler serviced. Happened to my oil burner 3 times in one week last winter. The electrical side of the boiler has a plug which could be plugged into a power monitoring plug. This should read different values if boiler fails I would guess. If your device is permanently plugged into electrical junction you could try CT clamp.
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I have been pondering the same thing…I have a boiler with an LED that flashes when in fault at about 1hZ and is on permanently when in standby. I thought about using an IR sensor connected to an esp8266 but I need to workout the pulse timing to trigger it…If your LED only comes on when in fault yours will be easier to adapt. But also agree with the comments if there is a fault get it serviced. Mine just trips out on overheat because its a lousy boiler
My Riello boiler has a remote lockout signal on it’s wiring harness. It’s a 240V signal so some form of optocoupler would be required.
I’d definitely advise getting professional help before trying to make use of this.
Another option would be an optical sensor over the lockout indicator.
I’ll add my voice to the recommendation to get the boiler serviced. I used to help out a boiler service guy during the busy season. I can assure you if it’s locking out occasionally it will get more frequent until the cause is found and resolved.
But monitoring is still a good idea. Probably the easiest way is to simply monitor the temperature and get notified when it goes below a threshold. If you could identify a circuit which gives a good indication of failure, either by sending a signal or by being shut off, you could install a relay (contactor) and hook the contacts to a zigbee door sensor or even GPIO pins on the RPi or an ESP chip.
Thanks everyone.
Just to be clarify - the boiler has just been serviced! The lockout was noted but nothing unusual was found - they suggested monitoring. 4 lockouts in 12 months is a tricky thing to diagnose 
Oil fired boilers are pretty simple things so there is not much to check. Hence the difficulty with a very occasional lockout.
Hence the idea of monitoring.
I was thinking of some sort of optical monitoring if anyone has bright(!) ideas on that one?
Try ESP32 or ESP8266 with a esphome and light sensor setup on analogue to digital pin.
- platform: adc
pin: A0
name: "LED Sensor"
What does the led look like on the panel? How close is led to heat?
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I use a template sensor for mine, I am monitoring the outgoing water pipe temperature with a one wire temperature sensor, and if the heating is on, but the water pipe hasn’t reach a threshold after 15 minutes, then something is wrong with the boiler - no gas? low water pressure? Just something.
- platform: template
sensors:
boiler_working:
friendly_name: "Boiler Running"
value_template: "{{ is_state('switch.house_boiler','on') and (states('sensor.boiler_water_out')|float > 39.5) }}"
delay_off:
minutes: 5
boiler_fault:
friendly_name: "Boiler Fault"
value_template: "{{ is_state('switch.house_boiler','on') and is_state('binary_sensor.boiler_working','off') }}"
delay_on:
minutes: 15
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I like your solution.
Oddly enough, I just had my boiler lock out for the first time in decades. We had a massive rain storm, probably the worst I’ve seen here, and somehow water probably got into the chimney. The funny thing is, it wasn’t very cold so the thermostat cycled on and off several times, using the residual heat in the boiler even after the burner locked out. It never got cold in the house, so I didn’t notice until I got no hot water at the sink.
The LED is on the front panel so away from heat. I also have an ESP32 so that is good idea for me to investigate
Thanks
This is a more complete solution I feel as it will detect anything going wrong.
It also mimics the basic operation of the boiler (eg; fire up when temp of water drops) and so that makes me wonder about something off the boiler thermostat as well.
Further investigation needed
Two good ideas to look at here. I will keep people posted
Andrew, what do you use for your one wire temp sensor? Zigbee compatible?
Ta
Paul
Of all nights for a boiler lockout.
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I have a rather expensive solution - I have an Ethernet OneWire server. OW-SERVER: 1-Wire to Ethernet Server, Revision 2
It handles 3 channels of OneWire - and we needed this overly expensive solution, because we are monitoring the building next door, for temperature and humidity, not just of the areas the public have access to, but more importantly - he organ chambers for the Theatre Pipe Organ.
The temperature sensors themselves though at the end of the day, are still your standard DS18b20 ones. This is basically what we are using for monitoring the pipe temperature with some electric tape around it securing it the exterior of the pipe. SWE0a Temperature Sensor, Sheepwalk Electronics
Hope that helps.
Oh, you don’t know the half of it. I haven’t slept in going on 40 hours. At one point I had three sump pumps going and was just barely keeping up. One pump drain backed up, one plumbing connection at another pump’s discharge failed, spewing the output from the pump. One float switch jammed. I had to pull together parts to re-route one pump discharge line and add that third pump and it’s discharge. Things are back to normal now; just the two pumps and they’re cycling on only about every two minutes. The water never got more than a half-inch above the floor, well below the boiler. If I hadn’t been here the boiler would have been totally underwater. I could see water cascading down the stone foundation walls from that height.
Believe me, the burner lockout was the least of my worries. I pushed the button and the old girl fired right up with a puff of steam. The tech is coming to do the annual tune-up soon, so I’ll have him verify everything then.
But I will be watching this thread. Some direct way to detect the status of the burner is in order. But only after that massive new pump I ordered today is installed. I have some old ESP8265’s and temperature sensors laying around that I’ve been meaning to play with. (Sorry for the TMI. I had to tell someone!)
I think this thread is cursed. Boiler locked out last night and wouldn’t fire up again. Service bloke came round and fixed it when I was out at work. 
Interesting though, my LED only comes on if thermostat calls for heat. I turned temp down and LED went out. So it would be simpler if I just monitored for no heat rise when heat called for if I wanted to monitor boiler
@Spiro, did you find out what the service technician fixed? I agree the best bet is to monitor the temperature. For me it’s easy since the the boiler also heats the domestic hot water. I can just alert when it falls below a threshold temperature, because it never should.
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Fuel pump had gone. About 15 years old. 
160 quid
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Boiler fine for weeks, started cutting out again today so I out a temperature sensor on the hot water outlet. Works just fine and I can see a drop in temperature when it locks out - press button and away we go.
So, how best to set up an alert for the lockout based on time of day (eg; heating on) and then temperature drop?
In pseudo logic:
Is it between 0800-2200? (eg; heating on)
Has temp gone over 50degC? (eg; heating has started)
Has temp dropped below 45decC? (eg; boiler locked out)
—>> alert
Can I set a boolean variable to ON following time and temp? Then if ON and temp drops?
Re-read the whole thread and learnt from @mobile.andrew.jones !
For now and testing I am using 4 automations, with two input booleans.
boiler.start uses time to set boiler.on boolean ON
boiler.running uses temperature greater than 50degC to set boiler.running boolean ON
boiler.lockout when temp drops below 48degC and boiler.running ON then IFTTT email lockout !
boiler.off uses time to turn everything OFF
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