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thetankatwaterheaterrescue.com > Forums > The Tank > New GE Gas Water Heater - Pilot won't stay lit until tank te |
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thetankatwaterheaterrescue.com > Forums > The Tank > New GE Gas Water Heater - Pilot won't stay lit until tank te |
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| New GE Gas Water Heater - Pilot won't stay lit until tank te | Rating: 
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| Posted: Fri Feb 3rd, 2012 05:57 pm |
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101st Post |
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elenano Member 
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Don't call Whirlpool. That is a different company that makes different water heaters. Randy Schuyler
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| Posted: Fri Feb 3rd, 2012 10:41 pm |
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102nd Post |
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Geno_3245 Member
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Your water heater installation is out of code. I believe most local codes require water heater installation 18" off floor. Note that many flammable vapors are heavier than air, and hug the floor. And so you can't smell them. Your air intake is located on side of unit, and does not appear to be covered with lint etc. But the area is not free of dust, and the air screen inside tank is finer mesh. My 'opinion' is that the powder probably clogged air intake and caused FV event. Fine powder looks like powered soap like Tide?? When you scoop soap it produces dust, and water heater draws cubic feet of air into burner from surrounding room, so dusty environment will clog water heater. Notice your gas burner is also covered with soot, and hasn't been cleaned. This imples poor air supply, not enough air, and/or poor venting. Facts point to dirty environment, lack of yearly burner maintenance, lack of air intake cleaning, and incorrect installation causing FV event. Without good air flow, the combustion chamber heats up because the gas is burning but the heat is not rapidly moving up vent pipe. Overheated combustion chamber can trip FV. Today's water heaters require good air flow, good venting, and clean combustion parts. Read product manual for advisories and maintenance. Some gas controls need to be replaced. Product manuals are not fully clear because FV systems are evolving, and there are many different gas control valves, and different conditions cause different events. If pilot will not light, and no gas is coming out of gas control, then gas control is bad. Following AO Smith service manual covers possible testing walk-thru. Including causes for sooting and ECO test pg 12-13 http://waterheatertimer.org/pdf/AO-smith-service-handbook.pdf More testing steps with Bradford White service manual. http://waterheatertimer.org/pdf/44943-D-FVIR-Brad-White.pdf Your photograph looks like the water heater does not have resettable ECO or TCO located on combustion door. And that no wires connect gas control and combustion chamber. Without wires connecting combustion chamber to gas control, the FV event might not have caused gas control to shut down gas. So gas control might be good. http://waterheatertimer.org/images/IMG_1098-Gas-wh-800.jpg Gas controls have ECO located inside probe that extends into tank. ECO energy cut off will trip if high heat is detected inside tank. If this single-use ECO is tripped, then gas control will not let any gas pass to pilot or burner. http://waterheatertimer.org/images/Gas-valve-ECO-124.jpg
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| Posted: Sat Feb 4th, 2012 02:44 am |
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103rd Post |
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Ej Member 
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Water heaters in laundry room are are a poor choice for FVIR heaters. The air intake vents suck up lint and clog the fresh air intake. White powder is usually caused from the high heat created during the over heat condition. I wouldn't advise bypassing the FVIR device especially being in a laundry room. Your vents are along the sides of the heater. Even a small reduction in the holes for the vent will cause over heating. Inside the heater their is a small flame arrestor screen right below the glass vial. This also can get plugged. A failed thermostat, blocked flue, slab leak can also break the TRD. Some models the TRD can be replaced and it is best to call GE to see if yours apply. Cleaning of the air intake can be done by removing the burner but you are going to need a gasket kit when doing this. This should come with the TRD part.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 4th, 2012 08:28 am |
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104th Post |
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usaer Member
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Thanks EJ for input. Today I called GE. They will be shipping the kit for the glass vial shutoff device. It will ship out Monday and they said I will get it Tuesday. Today I removed the burner assembly and cleaned EVERYTHING inside the heat chamber. The white powder (shown in my above post attachment) was on the screen and on the inside of the vent pipe that runs from the bottom of the heater to the top. However, I had very very light dust-webs on maybe 2% of the outside vent holes that surround lower part of the heater. To little to think that this is where the problem might be. I agree with EJ that the laundry room is not the ideal place for this water heater. I expect that cleaning-stuff in the air may cause weird combustion and the result is the powder and this causes overheating in the heat chamber and poor ventilation that results in breaking the glass vial. I did notice somewhat of a bend inside the vertical heat vent above the heater I would estimate the bend could have resulted in reducing proper heat exhaust by as much as 10 or 15%. So may have played a part in the problem. I plan on replacing that with new one. I did rig the spring pin that normally holds the glass vial. I wedged in 2 pieces of ceramic that held the pin down all the way and allowed the baffle (or whatever you call it) to stay open. It took about 20 minutes to finally get that spring pin pushed in and wedged. The pin has a lot of resistance and is hard to press in with one hand while at the same time holding whatever you use to wedge it open. What makes it even harder is that you can not look inside the access door at the same time as reaching your arm inside the access door, so you have to do it by blind touch. Hopefully the glass vial will go in easier. I realize there could be some risk in by-passing the safety shutoff (glass vial) but it seems to operate fine. (No strange sounds, smells or sounds when it on) As a precaution I installed a fire/carbon monoxide alarm in the laundry room and will keep the heater no higher than the "warm" setting until Tuesday. Plus I am going to turn the heater off before going to bed and also before leaving for work. I also put the fan on low facing away from the heater just to make sure i have extra good ventilation. Finally, I put the fire extinguisher where I can grab it just in case. I guess a fine line between being safe and being stupid....Guess I'm both, but hate cold showers. I am curious about how much they will include in the kit. Especially if they will include a new gas control valve (thermostat), because on the outside of my heater on the label it states something to the effect that once the one-time disabling device is activated that a new gas control valve MUST be installed. When I mentioned this to the person from GE she was not aware of that. She said she did not think that the parts department included that in the kit and that the control valve and the emergency shut-off was not connected in any way. I did not argue with her. If it is not in the kit I will probably call GE again and raise the issue. I don’t see how they can refuse sending a new one. Thanks for your input EJ. The post that I have found in this forum were so great and hopefully my long-winded play-by-play will help someone else one day. I will check back daily for any new post, and also let you know how the KIT INSTALL went. Will try to post some pics later
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| Posted: Sat Feb 4th, 2012 09:27 am |
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105th Post |
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Geno_3245 Member
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Laundry room is bad location. Read product manual for advisories about location of water heater. Typical manuals says about sooting: " An insufficient supply of air will cause recirculation of combustion products resulting in air contamination that may be hazardous to life. Such a condition often will result in a yellow, luminous burner flame, causing carboning or sooting of the combustion chamber, burners and flue tubes with possible damage to the water heater." Same manual says about chemicals: "Water heater corrosion and component failure can be caused by the heating and breakdown of airborne chemical vapors. Examples of some typical compounds that are potentially corrosive are: spray can propellants, cleaning solvents, refrigerator and air conditioning refrigerants, swimming pool chemicals, calcium and sodium chloride, waxes and process chemicals. These materials are corrosive at very low concentration levels with little or no odor to reveal their presence." Rheem bulletin on corrosive atmospheres says about chemicals: " Atmospheric conditions inside a home can cause damage to a water heater. The water heater should not be installed near an air supply containing chemical compounds that are formed with these corrosive elements. Halogens are any of the four non-metallic chemical elements - fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine. For example, the air in beauty shops, dry cleaning establishments, photo processing labs and storage areas for liquid and powdered bleaches or swimming pool chemicals often contain such hydrocarbons. The air may be safe to breath, but when pass through a gas flame, corrosive elements are released that will shorten the life of any gas burning appliance. Propellants from common spray cans or gas leaks from refrigeration equipment are highly corrosive after passing through a flame. In many cases these chemical become vaporized. These vapors are normally two and one half times heavier than air and are drawn to gas fired appliances. Halogen contaminated atmospheres may be the cause of external corrosion of gas water heaters." The white deposits on roof of combustion chamber appear to have been built up over time. The layer is flaking off and hanging down in one place. And flaked off in another area and then the surface was re-coated. The flakes laying on bottom look like they broke off the ceiling in small slabs. It looks like result of something getting burned in the flame over period of time, otherwise it would coat the side walls too. It doesn't look like the white deposits caused damage to combustion chamber, and probably hasn't damaged the vent pipe, but the vent should also be inspected.
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| Posted: Sun Feb 5th, 2012 02:23 am |
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106th Post |
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Ej Member
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The less restriction you have in your vent pipe the better off you are going to be. Every elbow reduces the the ease which hot air can move through the pipe. So you heat the burner chamber up a bit more with each restriction, Please check the flame arrestor screen also below the glass vial. Lint can pass through the outside screen holes since the are much bigger and plug this area up. Also you can do a temp test by heating your heater up slowly at different stages on your thermostat. Test your water temp each time your burner cycles off. GE will only give you a new glass vial once so make sure you find the reason why it broke in the first place. Also do a draft test. I think there are some instruction on this site. A blocked or slow drafting flue will break the vial also.
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| Posted: Sun Feb 5th, 2012 02:25 am |
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107th Post |
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Ej Member
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P.S. A new thermostat isn't included with the kit. Hopefully you will get a gasket kit with it
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| Posted: Mon Feb 6th, 2012 06:34 pm |
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108th Post |
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usaer Member
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Thanks for heads-up about GE not usually including a new thermostat with the shutoff glass vial. Hopefully tomorrow I get the kit as GE said, but more likely will get it Wednesday if it was shipped Monday. I am thinking that if the thermostat gas control valve is NOT included with the kit that I will just go ahead and install the shutoff glass vial and IF the glass vial breaks again I would INSIST that they send me another glass vial kit and this time include the thermostat. I don't think they can justify NOT sending me another kit with thermostat when their own label on the heater states that the thermostat MUST be replaced at the same time as the shutoff device (glass vial). I wonder if anyone ever got a NEW heater if the old one keeps tripping the shutoff device making the heater useless? (Just thinking ahead) I am still operating heater by bypassing the glass vile shutoff. (I dont mind doing this for a couple of days but might be to risky to do perminently. The updraft on the heat vent pipe is good and it has a nice big blue flame which to me means the burner has good ventilation...right? If it did not, I would think that the flame would be more yellow/orange as what happens when not getting enough oxygen Thanks for input.... will post again once i have kit.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 6th, 2012 06:55 pm |
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109th Post |
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usaer Member
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Geno....i SOMEHOW did not see your 1st post on Feb 3 at 5:41. That post had a lot of info! Although we only use liquid detergent (not Tide) I agree that fumes and particles would tend to hug the floor area and might indeed have played a big part in the chamber overheating. When i bought the heater 7 years ago, I think that I asked the guy at Home Depot if code required that I put this heater on a stand (18"). He said no. I think that I will have to double check that info and maybe put it on a stand whether required or not... just so the heater gets cleaner air. Thanks again for all of that info!
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24th, 2012 05:15 pm |
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110th Post |
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ohillny Member
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I have read a lot of the posting with people and the pilot issue I am having the opposite. I have a GE i think 40g bought it 2009.. The water heater went out at some point during the day. I lit the pilot i attempted to turn the thermostat back up and a large flame burst out and it went out. I tried a second time after turning it off "spooked out of my mind" letting it sit for about 10 min this time i lit pilot I was attempting to put the cover back on before turning the thermostat up it seemed as soon as i touch the cover to the water heater I got that same flame burst and flame went out again. After this i turn the it off and closed the gas valve. Also the manual states combustion shut off tripped and I should call a service technician. Trying to avoid spending the money on that if some has experienced this and can be fixed by the average joe
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25th, 2012 12:31 am |
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111th Post |
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Ej Member
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Yes the manual is correct. Since there is no or little air to support combustion and the gas is still open because the thermocouple hasn't cooled down yet you can get gas build up then a flare. First find out if your heater can have the TRD replaced from GE. If so we can discuss the next steps.
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