Miscellaneous > Garage Gripes

😡 Gas water heaters

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sammons:
I've grown to hate anything with a computer chip! Four years ago my old style NG water heater for the house rusted thru tank at the top after 15yrs. Never a problem up till then, about the only thing that ever went wrong with older units was just an $8 Thermocoupler. When i built the house (2002-2003) I bought a matched pair of Reliance 40 gal water heaters, one for the house and one for the infloor heat in the garage, it's still working. Bought them at a lumber yard that was moving out older inventory. I give $150 for the pair.

Back to four years ago, priced new water heaters....$700 up each. Didn't have that much money, my buddy Tom bought me the new one. Called on warranty, nope. Not installed by a Reliance dealer or licenced authorized plumber😡  Been without hot water 10 days now, cold showers suck! No pilot lite, ran thru all i could to diagnose, Tom picked me up a Thermo coupler. Nope this has a computer control board, and takes a Thermopile instead.

Found Thermopile assy on Amazon and found control board on e'bay. Had Tom order, 2 days later he was notified they were out of control boards😡 I got the Thermopile assy friday evening. Installed saturday, pilot still won't stay on, must be the control board which was cancelled. Looked all morning none anywhere now, was 4 or 5 last week.

Got to thinking.....the tank doesn't know whats firing it...right? I saved the gas control valve and all the burner assembly from my old unit (as the infloor heat is a twin) I think i'm going to put the old style gas control and thermo coupler in the new tank.

Seems any new fangled stuff i have with a computer board gives me fits that shouldn't. Safety cut offs on top of each other. New mowers have a dozen safety cut offs you have to by pass to mow on a hill or mow backing up etc. Just venting on progress. I still say i was born 30-40yrs too late😁

Any body have thoughts on why that wouldn't work? 🤔
Both old/new are Reliance 40 gal, old was 35,000 BTU and new is 35,500 BTU. Holiday weekend, i'm not going to anything else soon.

sixball:
Give it a shot. It will all be controlled from Washington soon enough. They're drinking sewer water in Texas and getting the AC turned off in Colorado. You can't plug in your electric car in California or even own a garden hose in parts if England. I'm sure this winter heating our homes & water will make us terrorists. Anything with a computer can be controlled from somewhere else. We should all be looking for fixable old stuff. If you can fix it with old parts good on you!

sammons:
All part of the new green deal🙄 I can't believe some people give their rights away for "more security", or for a little cheaper elect/ gas rate when they then get  their thermostat remotely raised or lowered😖

Well at 9:30 lastnight I got my long hot shower😁 Talked to my plumber friend about the water heater, he didn't see any problem with swapping out controlers. So saturday night i dug up all the old stuff and cleaned it up. Took the thermoplile assy and removed the old thermopile and piszo ingnighter out. Formed a plan for installing thermo coupler in its place if i used new burner assy.
Sunday morning i had everything ready and rolled up my seat to start gutting. Unhooked main gas tube, then grabbed the wrench for the thermopile/pilot tube. Dropped the wrench twice, bent over to grab it and my hand was on the tube....it came out🤯 Took the "new fangled "breakaway ferrule nut" off.. it broke away but the ferrule failed to compress propper to the tube, in fact barely scratched it.

Brain balked at me with questions, could that have created low pressure to keep on and would that be a fault in maybe the ground for the millivoltage? Couldn't leave it that way without trying. Changed tube with the original put everything back together, lit pilot and it stayed on. Control board blinked code 1, all good with pilot. Turned knob to burner and nothing, but now blinking code 2. Looked that up, low voltage, replace thermopile. Arrrggg😡  looked in deeper on code 2, look for loose connections.
I knew all in the burner assy was tripple checked before i installed it. Which put me back to control board. What the heck, pulled control board to put eyes on, not that i know what to look for exactly. Looked for burnt spots and loose connections. Bingo! At the lower outside corner is the 2 male spade terminals that the thermopile and safety cutoff plug into. Cold solder joint and was loose. Soldered her up, put all back together and it fired off😊 So, an accidental grab by chance found part of the problem, (till next time).
Guess i didn't waste $50 in parts for the hell of it.
I'd never run across this breakaway ferrule thing before, it was supplied in the thermopile kit. Made of real quality Chinesium brass i'm sure. I wouldn't ever use one again.

chopper526:
A happy ending and a hot shower!! ;D

sixball:
Good job, you are THE man! Do you know how few people out of 300,000,000 + could have done that? People who can fix their own stuff are rare. Even "techs" just replace components.

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