Braemar Air Conditioner Symbols and What They Mean

Braemar air conditioner symbols can look unfamiliar the first time you use the controller. Most people searching for Braemar symbols are holding the wrong thing. They are looking for a handheld remote, and what is actually on their wall is a controller with a hinged door, a flame icon and a word like WAKE on the display.

That matters, because a Braemar wall controller says different things to a split system remote. This page sets out every Braemar symbol in plain language, taken from Braemar and Seeley International documentation rather than from guesswork, and it starts by working out which controller you have.

First, which Braemar do you have?

Braemar is made by Seeley International and sells five quite different things in Australia. The symbols on your controller depend on which one is in your house.

Braemar Spectrolink wall controller symbols

The Spectrolink Comfort Controller is the one with a hinged door covering a second row of buttons. It runs ducted gas heating, and refrigerated or evaporative cooling where fitted. It carries the richest symbol set Braemar publishes.

Two of those are worth reading twice. The flame tells you the gas rate, not just that it is on. A small flame means the heater has dropped to low gas because the room is close to temperature, which is the system working properly rather than failing to get hot.

And the battery symbol does not mean the controller needs batteries. On a Spectrolink it means power to the heater is off. If that symbol appears, check the isolating switch before anything else.

Zones on a Braemar ducted system

Braemar ducted heating can have up to four zones. If one zone is installed the display shows the word ZONE and a 1. Where more are fitted, the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 appear and a number showing means that zone is active.

Two limits worth knowing. Zones are only displayed if they were installed and enabled by the installer, on 4 and 5 star heaters. And zone numbers appear in heat and refrigerated cooling only, not in evaporative cooling mode.

Zones are also programmable per time period, so a room can be heated at WAKE and skipped at AWAY without anybody touching the controller.

Braemar evaporative cooling symbols

Evaporative controllers speak a different language again, because an evaporative cooler has a water tank and a pump to worry about.

• MAN and AUTO. Manual and automatic mode.
• COOL. Fresh cool air, with the pump running.
• VENT. Fresh un cooled air. The fan runs, the pump does not.
• Preparing to Start, flashing. The cooler is filling with water and saturating the pads. Normal.
• Pre Cool Cycle, flashing. The pump is wetting the pads before the fan starts. Also normal.
• dr. Drain mode. The tank is being emptied.
• Service, flashing. A fault has been recognised, with a number underneath.

That first pair explains one of the common evaporative calls. Select cooling on a hot afternoon and nothing seems to happen for a few minutes. Braemar states that the cooler takes a few minutes to start as it fills with water and saturates the cooling pads, and Preparing to Start flashes while it does. Nothing is broken.

Braemar reverse cycle wired controller symbols

Ducted reverse cycle systems use an XK76 or XE71 wired controller, and these look far more like a normal air conditioner display.

The published icon list covers auto, cool, dry, fan and heat modes, up and down swing, left and right swing, fresh air, sleep, health, I demand, holiday or vacation, fan speed, memory, turbo, energy saving, and a shield icon showing which operations have been disabled.

Two are worth explaining because the names give nothing away. Memory means the unit will resume its original settings after power is restored. Holiday is a vacation function rather than anything to do with public holidays.

Zoned reverse cycle systems add an LE60 zone controller, which shows the current zone name, its mode, fan speed and the time, and handles up to eight zones across two pages of four.

Braemar split system remote symbols

If you genuinely do have a handheld Braemar remote, it belongs to a high wall split and carries the familiar set. Auto cycles between cool and heat depending on ambient temperature, cool is refrigerated cooling, dry extracts moisture, fan is fan only with no cooling, and heat is reverse cycle heating.

Beyond that there is fan speed at auto, low, medium and high, sleep, turbo to quickly reach the set temperature, timer on and off, swing, a health or vent button, and I feel, where the remote controller acts as the temperature thermostat.

The lock on a Braemar split remote is a simple one. Press both the up and down arrows at the same time to lock or unlock it. The icon appears, and it blinks three times when you press a button while locked.

Is there a child lock on a Braemar wall controller?

On a Spectrolink, no. Braemar does not document a child lock or keypad lock on any Spectrolink manual. The hinged door covering the reset, zone and fan buttons is the only access restriction there is.

On MagIQtouch there is a Child Access Lock where you set a pin to restrict access. Braemar lists the feature but does not publish how to enable or clear it, or what to do if the pin is forgotten, so this page will not guess at the steps.

On the XK76 and XE71 wired controllers you lock individual items from the menu rather than the whole keypad at once. Mode, set temperature, fan speed and the keypad itself can each be locked separately.

Braemar fault codes, and the ones that do not exist

This is where most pages about Braemar go wrong, so here is the honest version.

Braemar behaviour that looks like a fault and is not

Braemar publishes several of these, and between them they cover most of the calls that turn out to be nothing.

Why does my Braemar say Service or show a spanner?

These are two different messages and they come from two different products.

The spanner on a Spectrolink means the heater requires attention from a Braemar service technician. It is a request for a visit rather than something you can clear.

Service flashing on an evaporative controller means a fault has been recognised, with a number showing the reason. On older evaporative controllers there is a documented way to clear a Service message that appears on initial start up, by pressing and holding the down button for about ten seconds until the word disappears.

There is no filter symbol on a Braemar controller

Worth saying plainly, because people wait for one. No Braemar controller carries a filter change icon in any documentation published for homeowners.

What Braemar publishes instead is a schedule. The return air filter, where fitted, must be checked and cleaned by the owner at least once every two weeks during the heating season.

Braemar also requires its ducted gas heaters to be serviced by a qualified licensed technician every two years, and states that failure to comply will void the warranty. That one is worth a calendar entry.

What to do with an evaporative cooler at the end of summer

Braemar publishes an end of season routine, and it is short.

1. Disable the power supply.
2. Turn off the water supply.
3. Clean the tank and the pump filter thoroughly.
4. Remove the bleed system, where one is fitted.

Before the next season, inspect all components for damage, gently wash the pads avoiding high pressure water, replace the bleed system and check the o ring is fitted, and test everything before you need it.

Braemar does not publish an instruction to cover or seal the cooler for winter, so if somebody has told you to wrap it, that is not coming from the manufacturer.

Which Braemar symbols point at a real fault?

• RESET flashing with a number on a Spectrolink, after you have tried the reset sequence twice with a ten minute wait between.
• The spanner symbol. This is Braemar asking for a technician by name.
• Service flashing on an evaporative controller with a number other than 02 or 04.
• Any code on a reverse cycle wired controller that returns after a power cycle.
• The battery symbol on a Spectrolink when the isolating switch is definitely on, since that means the controller is not seeing the heater.
• A gas smell of any kind. Leave the building and call the gas emergency line from outside.

Everything else on this page is a setting or a designed delay.

Getting your Braemar back to doing its job

Most symbols on a Braemar controller are the system telling you what it has been asked to do. A small flame because the room is nearly warm. WAIT because the pads are still filling. A zone number missing because somebody turned that room off in the program.

Work out which controller you have first, read the right table, and in most cases the answer is a button press or a wait of two minutes. Worth knowing too is how often you should service your air conditioner, since Braemar ties its own warranty to a service schedule.

When the symbols all look right and the house still will not behave, that is the point where guessing costs more than asking. We send a licensed technician who works on ducted, split and multi head systems across Melbourne, and the price is confirmed before any work starts. If your system is a different brand, our guide to air conditioner symbols covers the ones every manufacturer shares.

If you have never had the system looked at, it is worth knowing what a professional air conditioner service includes before you book one.

Braemar wall controllers hide a good deal behind a small screen. If yours is reporting something the manual does not cover, our air conditioner service in Melbourne can read it, and you can request a quote first.