Hot Water Heater

[eclayton]

I recently refilled the propane tanks in my fifth wheel and forgot to turn the hot water heater off before turning off the propane and after i hooked the bottles back up the hot water heater has not started working again. I've tried turning the hot water heater off and back on and also leaving it off over night to see if that would get it to work again and i havent had any luck. Does anyone know what to do to fix this without having to call out a repair man? I dont know too much about this system just that it has the electric spark to light the flame instead of having a pilot light. any feed back would be greatfull



thanks

[Hunter11]

Have you purged all the air out of the propane system by lighting your stove and letting it run for a few seconds then try lighting the water heater? Sounds like you have air in the system after you pulled the bottles off and had them refilled. Hope this helps.

[fhenn]

I agree with Hunter

[eclayton]

i havent tried the stove but the furnace has been running would that purge it the same?

[gtoguy1967]

Is the red light coming on ? When the hot water tries to light it will try three times, If it does not light it will stop and the red light in the control pannel will come on. I always light the stove when the happens and it helps the gas in the system move. Maybe even try the furnace and the fridge too, You just need a little movement in the system .

[eclayton]

ok i'll try that

[lenny]

Also, you can go to the water heater and unplug the two electrical connectors and plug them back in, and that will reset the system. I had to do that to mine last week. They are on the right side, near the top. Right beside the pressure relief valve.

[eclayton]

one of the wires went bad, got it fixed thanks for the suggestions

[eclayton]

it was the thermal cutoff wire

[rock1424]

That makes sense. Good to know, thanks for the update.

[coastn]

I also had a problem recently with the heater not operating in either electric or LP mode. I had used it in electric mode O.K. for about three weeks. Then went out for a night of dry camping and used it in LP mode for the first time since our PDI back in March of '08. Flipped the switch to LP, got no red light, got hot water. Next morning went out to find black soot above the vent on the heater cover and for about a foot above on the side of the trailer.Heart stopper as I thought I may have melted some fiberglass. Fortunately, not the case. Everything cleaned upbut found the heater wouldn't work in either mode. On to Tuscon to an authorized Atwood service center.Tech gave a thorough checkout of the heater both from an electric and LP standpoint. Found I had an obstruction in the burner nozzle which caused a very yellow low pressure flame vs. high pressure blue. This created black smoke causing the soot and blowing the thermal cutoff. We discovered this when the tech unplugged the thermal cutoff from the line and then plugged the line back in which made the heater operate normally. Bought a card of two thermal cutoffs ($24), replaced the bad one and now have a spare. Good news is the cutoff worked and prevented God knows what from happening. Also, if blows and you take it out of the line the heater should still work but you won't have the safety feature of the cutoff...it's there for a reason! Moral of the story is: I should have checked out the burner as part of the de-winterizing process (duh). I will from now on and periodically throughout the season. Highly recommend everyone do likewise.

[dalemac377]

What was the obstruction? I have covered the grill on mine with aluminum screening to keep wasps, etc. from building nests. Glad everything is ok and no serious problem. Good info on the thermal cutoff.

[coastn]

The tech unscrewed the nozzle and kinda scraped things inside and out with the straight end of a paper clip. It has a pretty small hole and was somewhat clogged, don't know with what,but not totally thus the yellow low pressure flame. When cleaned up it immediately produced a strong high pressure blue flame as it's supposed to. It hadn't been fired up in two years due to my propensity to use campgrounds with electric hookups and no dry camps. It'll get more lovin from now on.

[Ridgeman]

Sounds like the old tinyspider web or nest.