Merry Christmas Daddy, BTW: no hot water....

[pishta]

So I get up Sat and all is good, Christmas has come and gone, everyone happy...I get into the shower and the water starts to get cold. "Turn off the freaking washer while Im in the shower.." I say to myself, but that aint it. Water getting colder, Im bathing faster...done. Water is now luke warm at most. I take a look at the water heater outside the house and am thinking the pilot light blew out as we are having some pretty good winds and the shanty is not real windproof. Sure enough no pilot in the window so I go thorugh the hurdles of relighting it with the piezo starter and thermo-coupler bypass. it wont stay lit so I google it and determine the Thermo-coupler is bad, pretty common in this situation. Its a thick copper cable who's probe sits in the pilot light flame and generates a slight voltage on the cable up to the thermostatic controller. If there is no TC voltage, the unit shuts off the gas to prevent an unburned gas leak. Well if the TC goes, it thinks there is no flame and "no gas for you!" Its a universal $12 part at Homie Depot and not real hard to replace. Hardest thing is getting the weather grommet back into position. It literally unbolts from the bottom of the controller and snakes through a rock hard with age grommet into a bracket, through a hole into a push on ferrule that secures it where it should sit in the pilot flame. The universal one I bought also had a stop on the bottom that prevented you from pushing it past the flame. Its about an hour job if you never done it, probably about 20 minutes if you have. So dont call The Gas Co just yet, check your TC. If the pilot light doesnt stay lit after you get off the "push to light" knob, its probably bad and can be replaced for less than 2 Grande peppermint Frapaccino's at Starbucks. :coffee2::coffee2:

 

[cosgig]

Been saving my money drinking coffee at home.....just in case!!! ;-)

Glad to hear all is well and you got er fixed!!! Treat yourself to one of those frappo thingys, you deserve it!! And send yourself a bill, plumbers make $85 and your around here, and you know you're worth it!!!!

 

[4spdragtop]

Glad ya were able to fix it. Lack of water or hot water can be aggravating. Especially to the estrogen side of the population. Good it wasn't yesterday.
Yours is outdoors? But NG?
We "rent" our NG hw tank. $20 added to our monthly gas bill. If we ever have an issue we dial the 800 #.
Had to.do.it twice in 12 years....knock on wood.

 

[chryslerfat]

The last tc I put in my rentals water heater was October. The one before that only lasted a year. The original lasted 8 years. They sure dont make the new ones to last.

 

[67Dart273]

On a side note, here is some "More" about TC. It's thermocouple, not "coupler."

1...These are VERY low voltage and current so any "bug" can render them inoperative.

2...ALWAYS pull the pilot light and blow it out with high pressure air. You cannot clean the orifice they are too small. If the pilot is noisy, that is "blowing" it is partially plugged, IE the orifice is corroded, dirty, etc. Orifices used to be available, but nowadays things are "more complicated."

3....Most modern heaters have a device which allows an extra switch (such as a vent "spill" switch) in SERIES with the TC. This is evidenced by extra electrical connections near the TC connection on the gas valve, labeled "ECO"

THESE ARE TROUBLE. This is because the TC is such low current, that ANY added nonsense (switch) adds resistance in the circuit, and can cause "nuisance" trips. Since things like limits and spill switches are "up there" in the humidity, heat, and stack gases, they can corrode internally. Like I said, trouble

Some ECO / TCO devices are a "one time" fuse, which, generally are better than switches until they fail, as they have no contacts to corrode.

The days of simple water heaters are about over.

The basic thermocouple is known as 30 millivolts, but that is a USELESS figure. Anybody who tells you that you can test either a thermocouple or thermopile "open circuit" is incorrect.

I used to have a device (tool) specially for testing TCs. It screws between the TC and the gas valve, and gives you a meter terminal to hook onto. This tests the TC "under load" while the valve is actuated.

Simply the stud on the side of the tool hooks to the center conductor, allowing access when connected. I've forgotten the "minimum" accepted voltage, 12 mv sticks in my head. The last time I officially worked on HVAC was about 1995

This article says 12mv

hometips.me/Mar/Test-thermocouple.pdf

A thermoPILE is a container, basically, of a "whole bunch" of thermocouples in series. The most common is known as a "750 millivolt" or "millivolt" or "self powered" system. These thermopiles actually operate the entire gas valve with no external power, and are used in any of these corner "look like wood heaters" gas and LP room heaters, wall heaters, and RV furnaces, etc. They too, are "trouble." When I had mine installed in my house (I was out of the business, and this was insurance repair) I had the electrician run no 16 Romex for stat wire. If you use a remote stat with a mv system, you want to be SURE the stat wire is oversized and large enough. You also want a wall stat designed specifically for 750mv / millivolt/ self powered systems. A "low voltage" stat is 24V, and not "millivolt."

A thermopile is almost always much larger than an thermocouple, perhaps 3/8" OD. It typically has wire leads as shown. They are calling this a "powerpile," another term

 

[pishta]

Thanks for the insiders lesson on TC's. All I need to know is I can fix one now. OEM Rheem lasted 3 years......2012 build date. And it may have happened Christmas day, we were gone all day...at Grandmothers's house if you can believe it!
Youtube makes it look like the entire burner comes out like a pan of jiffy-pop from the oven. On hell! Mine had to drop about 2 inches to clear some rail, and it was already sitting in the pan on the ground. Not happening unless I raise it onto a cinder block. I had to unscrew the pilot light bracket and work the TC out of the bracket while it was still half way in the heater. I also found out that the supply hose on top was leaking pretty good, wouldnt have noticed it if not for the lack of hot water. We have a high rise I work in that blew a water heater on the 7th floor on a weekend. The water ran all the way down the Telco riser to the basement and took out the entire phone cable. Nice.....

 

[67Dart273]

Sometimes simple stuff can "nearly get you." One Monday morning I was called out ----an office building downtown was overheated. This is in an old old OLD house, and the furnace was an old convection (no blower, just huge ducts by gravity) and this was a "conversion" gun gas burner. That is, it had been converted from wood or coal to gas.

It was heating merrily away, the hi limit was tripped. The antique MOTOR DRIVE gas valve was stuck wide open. If it had happened early Friday evening when they closed for the weekend, I probably would have been talking with the fire chief, LOL

This was a SIMPLE system. Gas valve, wall stat, hi limit, and a 24 V transformer fed by a disconnect. That's all. And yet it failed and would have been serious.

 

[Yote]

Most water heaters now have a label that says if it fails to light wait at least --- minutes before attempting to relight. THEY MEAN IT. Another thing I know , dont ask how.

 

[pishta]

haha, I see where that went...foooom! I was lighting a friends jacuzzi heater when the controller went out. We just straight piped it to the flame spreader and controlled it with the shut off valve, worked great for a few, but didnt modulate heat very well. last time I lit it I stuck arm in there with a lighter and told the guy to open the valve.."It's already open!" Oh shi....! Foooom! It set me back on my *** and singed all the hairs on my hand. Lucky I was wearing a long sleeve shirt! Good times.....;-)

 

[67Dart273]

Well the BIG question is "did you get the water heater fixed?" LOL

I've had my share of close calls. You learn to never be in front of the burner when lighting off

But I got the ess ach eye tee kicked out of me by an oil furnace once.

This was a nice local family with a nice house on a hill. No natural gas. This was back when LP and nat gas high efficiency was just getting wound up. They had an existing oil furnace, and it had "puffed back" on them and dirtied up the house with soot. They were going to have it cleaned

I was called out there to evaluate the thing and fix it if practical. I pulled the burner apart and inspected everything I could think of, cleaned and adjusted the elctrodes, replaced the nozzle and cleaned the filters. Gave it a REAL goin' over.

Put it to gether and lit it off. Lit off GREAT. Nice flame, quiet, looked and sounded great. I decided to check nozzle pressure, so I took it down and did that, and reconnected, the oil to the nozzle and fired it back up.

Once again it fired great and fired for about 30 seconds.

This was in a small, cramped, "had been remodeled" basement furnace room, and there was very little clearance between the wall and the front of the burner. I was sitting on the floor, my legs down one side of the furnace, and would twist my body over to access the burner.

It was firing and I decided to take a look with my mirror. These are stainless so you can stick them in the firebox. I propped the door open with a wrench and reached for my mirror.

"Ker freeekin bloooie!!!" the thing goes and ***** soot all OVER everything, the room, me, (I had my glasses on) COVERED my face with soot.

To this day I don't know what caused it. I shut it down, and the owner decided we would install a new LP forced air. I told the guys to save the old one until I could look it over, but I had to go down home and get cleaned up. They took it to the dump before I could inspect it.

On a side note, I was driving down the road in the truck towards home, and the bosses' kid (manager) passed me the other way. He was laughing his *** off. I had these two gigantic holes around my eyes where my glasses had been.

 

[Yote]

Yeah, I ended up in ER, back of my fingers huge blisters, flash burns up my arms and over right shoulder. It is amazing how something that lasts a tenth of a second ( or less) can be so dang hot.

 

[jos51700]

Why does the little vent valve thing on the side of my water leak? Po installed a line pressure regulator and my house still has amazing water pressure, but that valve dribbles constantly.

 

[pishta]

Is that the blow off valve half way up the side? Attach a hose to it and cycle the manual spring valve a few times. That may clear some calcium out of the valve seat. Watch discharge, it will be hot. If it continues to leak, jusy lay discharge hose into flower pot.