AO SMITH

Bob Sweet

No I didn't test the flue gases, however I did remove the vent from the water heater(it's in a garage,well vented area) and this had no effect on the outage.

Robert O'Connor_12

AO Smith water heaters

Anyone been experiencing problems with mid cycle shut down causing pilot outage?? We just installed (yesterday) a GCV 40 installation as per normal. I just came back from sevice call for no hot water %^$#@. The unit fires right up and runs about three minutes then just shuts down and takes pilot flame with it. I tested gas pressure, reads 9.00. Thermocouple with tester, OK, took about 50 seconds to trip. Chimney drafting OK, combustion air OK. Relite, ran for 12 minutes shut down again, relit and it seemed to work. WHATSUPWITDAT???
Before (tommorrow) I contact regional rep I was wondering if any of you lads (or lasie's) have had any problems with these new sealed units. We typically stay away from residential work (quite frankly I can't even recall the last time we installed a residential heater. It's gotta be three years at least) but this was for a good commercial customers mom who is 87 years old...Thanks!


Robert O'Connor/NJ

Bob Sweet

It wasn't an a AO Smith

it was a State, just last week. 1 yr. old, to the manuf. defense they stood behind the problem. after a total of 11 hours on the job and 4 trips out they FINALLY replaced the water heater under warranty. At first the ECO was thought to be the culprit , kept going out on high limit (190* limit on ECO),after factory sent replacement ECO & pilot assem. problem continued manf. then overnighted a new gas valve , just like yours shut down minutes into start up. Finally got O.K to replace heater under warranty, whether it's a problem with air/fuel mixture or not enough combustion air due to design problems in burner compartment .It's possible there's a problem brewing with some of the manuf. designs. We've installed many many Rheems and had zero problems.

Mark Hunt

Curious


Did you test the flue gas ABOVE the drafthood with a combustion analyzer?

If the flue gases are blocked by a curtain effect, the result would be just as you described.

Mark H

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Mark Hunt

Ok


Just offering another possibilty.

Keep me posted though will ya?

Mark H

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Jim Davis_3

water heater pilots

If you think this is a problem now, it is only going to get worse this winter. What I have seen so far is if the heaters vent properly the pilot flame lifts from the thermocouple. If they don't vent the ECO cuts them out. If they are installed with induced draft furnaces they will go out on ECO quite often. If fact one Rheem distributor has said they had so many problems last winter they may not allow their water heater to be common vented with a furnace at all. The fact that many have flue temperatures 100 degrees hotter and more than old water heaters they may create some additional problems. There are ways to solve the problems but you have to know what it is first.

Bob Sweet

Jim this particular water heater

stands alone. 3" D.W. vent pipe through roof 7' over all developed length visually I't did not appear that the pilot was lifting, sorta why I was leaning towards high limit outage. In fact it was high limit because there was a an interuption of pilot function until unit cooled down. It bug's just replacing the unit ,not knowing the reason for the problem.

Robert O'Connor_12

Follow up..

First I want to thank every one who responded to my post. When installing brand new equipment, one must be careful not to take a course of action that could void the manufacturers warentee. That being said and after my "checking out the unit" I decided to call in the factory rep who in turn assigns warentee work to a company. I had the pleasure of meeting Lee Parker of Parker appliance who handles all AO Smith warentee issues in my area, and I was glad I did. Lee changed out the entire burner assembly at no charge so my lil old lady can be comfortable for (hopfully another 6 years) living and not having to worry "her machine" was gonna explode. As it turns out, there was two problems with the assembly the major one causing the shut down was the thermocouple (I had checked this and it was within acceptable limits). I have not had great luck over the years with AO Smith and their products, or the companies ability to stand behind their equipment until now. So a big ol THANKS! goes out to Lee. I just hope AO Smith will start to check out their equipment BEFORE it leaves the factory.

Robert O'Connor/NJ

Glenn Harrison_2

Just for future reference in helping my fellow Wallies...

I have had two of these FVIR water heaters with problems that turned out to have dust plugging up the flame retardant discs.

The first one was, I believe, an A.O. Smith. One of my co-techs had found very high CO in the water heater during a furnace tune up. I used my combustion analyzer and found the O2 levels very low. Chimney draft was good. I finally pulled the burner, carefully lifted the metal pan in the bottom of the burner compartment, and blew out the flame retarding disc. Blew a huge drywall dust cloud out of the disc. Put everything back together, and low and behold all combustion numbers were normal. Cause: Major remodel of basement.

Second one was a State 40 gallon I put in about a 1 1/2 years ago. Customer called up that pilot kept going out, but they could re-lite it and would stay lit for quite sometime. I tested the thermocouple, got excellent millivolt readings. Finally determined the disc must be clogged up, as there was lint everywhere. Blew out the disc, got a mound of laundry lint out (water heater in laundry room). Re-lit and tested water heater, ran fine with good combustion numbers. Had customer call appliance guy to have dryer torn apart and cleaned, as well as duct cleaning company to clean out dryer venting. Haven't heard from them since, and this happened about 4 months ago.