A O Smith BTP139

Paul_11

Has anyone installed an A O Smith BTP139 recently or has anyone heard about a recent installation?

Last Sept I changed out an existing one for a regular customer when the tank developed a leak. He had the HWH for 12 years and wanted the same unit again. I said fine.

The old unit had a Midco burner which was still working fine. The unit ran fine for about a month. Then it went done one morning and when I took a look at it I discovered that the burner was a Wayne Blue Angel Plus, Model HSG200. It may be that A O Smith got a better deal from Wayne than from Midco. The problem is that the Wayne burner sucks big time. The Wayne technical support team has been helpful, but not successful. The local A O Smith warranty burner technician made it so much worse that the unit started going off 2 to 3 times a day. I took over again and the unit has been running a few days now, but who knows for how long. I have never ever walked away from a problem and won't now either, but this is frustrating. A O Smith is about to give us a new atmospheric unit to replace it. Most likely a BTR.

Just for the record.
While I wouldn't have reccomended this unit, I do try to give the customer what they want as long as I don't feel it's a horribly wrong decision. I actually reccomended an indirect tank but the customer said it would too expensive. He went with the BTP139.

I'm sorry this was such a long post but I wanted everyone to have enough information.

My suggestion is to stay away from this model and watch out for Wayne gas burners.

Paul
A Real Good Plumber, Inc.


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Steve Ebels

What specifically

Is wrong with the Wayne burner? What's it doing and what is locking it out???? I've had the little draft damper flap stick on a couple of them, makes a whole mess of soot in a hurry!!

Paul_11

BTP139

Hey SE,
This is a gas burner so we don't get any soot. It constantly goes off on safty lockout. The motor and fan are running, but it won't fire up. The owner goes down and turns the electrical switch off and then back on and the unit fires and makes hot water. When you say the "draft damper flap" what exactly are you referrin to. If you mean the barometric damper we have had no trouble with that or so it would seem. We did install a second one in an attempt to prevent the draft from pulling the flame off of the sensor rod. This is a 5 story building and the HWH is in the basement so it must be about 60 feet to the top of the 12" by 16" brick with clay lining chimney. On occasion I have had to install a second damper to avoid this problem in the cold or windy weather. There is an atmospheric boiler with 800,000 BTUs input on this chimney as well.
Paul

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Unknown

Just Curious

I know you are going to remove this unit but I am just curious.

First the Off Cycle damper Steve is talking about has to be adjusted for a setting of "1" it is on the side right behind the ignition transformer. They are known to stick. I have remvoed them and filed them down slightly to prevent sticking. My old company actually came up with that damper as a suggested solution to Wayne to stop problems with their older burners when they first came out with conversion burners.

The Pri Air setting is also critical on the HSG 200 it should be set initially at #3 setting but usually needs adjustment after the burner fires.

Does this unit have the Fenwal 05-31 module? If so what are the full numbers on the module?

I am also curious about what your combustion analysis was on this unit. The HSG 200 can fire up to 200,000 BTU's and from my experince it can work real good under 150,000. The BTP-139 is a 140,000 BTU A.O. Smith unit and with 4.5% O2 and 9.5% CO2 and a draft of -.01" WC will give good stability with about 80% efficiency. I have seen quite a few of these that worked real well. They do however need a good set up.

Which gas valve did this unit have?

Did you take any microamp readings? If so what did you find?

Paul_11

BTP139

Timmie,
Thanks for the reply.
Just because we may replace this unit please don't let that keep any of you from responding. If I can get the unit to run reliably it will stay put.

The unit is currently firing at about 125,000 BTUs. Wayne suggested lowering the firing rate from 140,000 right from the start. They said their burner would run more reliably at less than the 140,000 BTU rating of the BTP139.

I'm not sure what you mean by the Fenwall 15-31 module. If you mean the electronic ignition control module it was a Honeywell. I'm not sure what model. It is a single try ignition module, I know that. Wayne said we would lose warranty if we replaced it with a 3 try ignition module.

I don't have the gas valve model but I can get it. I'm meeting the A O Smith rep there on Tues. It was a combination type gas valve with a built in regulator.

I know what you mean by the off cycle damper. There are two air adjustment dampers. One is the primary air setting and the other is the off cycle damper. I am very interested in what you say about it sticking. Maybe I'll file it down just to be safe. In your experience when it sticks do you have to manually unstick it, or does it unstick itself somehow. Again all we have to do is turn the electricity off and then back on and it fires right up. I know it's not the motor as it is always running when we get there. The Honeywell ignition module has the burner off on safty lock out. We reset the electricity and away it goes.

We did the start up with the recomended initial settings and then went from there. I think we left it with about 27% excess air. I don't remember the co and co2, but they were good. The rectification was 1.9 to 2.2. We used both a Kane May and a Testo. My lead guy is very good at this, and I brought in a fiend of mine as well who is one of the best in NYC to double check it. I firmly believe that the combustion side is fine. From my experience when my company has a problem like this it has never turned out to be poor combustion settings. It is always something else. Adequate fresh air, adequate exhaust, Once I found a orafice that had been drilled out, and of course things like your damper filing down. Once I had a neighbor that was periodically putting a rug over the fresh air inlet and then removing it. She was mad that the fresh air grill was aiming towards her yard. That was the toughest one in my life to find.

I'm getting the impression that you have worked on lots of the Wayne HSG200 burners. Is this true? Have you worked on any that were installed in the BTP139. I'm beginning to question the design of the tank firing chamber. If it restricts too much it can build up too much resistance on initial firing and lock out.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

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