Overhead radiant heater

Cappelle

Hello, I didn't know if this was the best forum to ask this question but I thought I'd try. I searched the forums but could not find answers I was looking for.



I have a overhead infrared heater tube style Roberts Gordon. It's about 15 years old. I not sure what wrong with it. It lights and immediately kicks off. It appears to be the vacuum valve (or whatever it's called) kicking it off. So I tried bypassing it to see if it was the valve/switch. It runs but never gets as hot as it should and the exhaust smells like natural gas. So I would guess it's not burning properly. Possibly not getting enough air to create a vacuum? So I took it down and apart then clean out the tube it had a lot of soot and some rust flakes in it. The weld on the side with the fan has a crack in it but it's been like this for a long time. While it was down I put some furnace putty weld stuff on the crack. Anyway after all that I put it back together it worked for like 5 minutes before it started doing the same thing. I did notice the the crack had opened up a very small amount. Thinking it could be the problem I put little more on but it's still not working.



So I'm stumped.

My thoughts

- fan is not strong enough anymore?

- not sealed tight enough?



Any thought or opinions would be much appreciated.



Thanks.

Jamie Hall

Have to admit

that my first thought would be the dump.  That is an old heater, of its kind, and if it is developing cracks they aren't likely to stop -- you can't fix them with furnace cement or anything of the sort; the only fix is a competent welding job -- which would likely cost as much as a new one.



The real problem with cracks is that they disrupt the combustion, as you have found out.  The problem with that is that it is quite possible for carbon monoxide to form as a result, and get into the heated space where you are.  Carbon monoxide is not nice stuff.  It will kill you.



So...



As I say, my thought would be to say goodbye to the old faithful beast, and get a new one.