water heater

I haven’t posted the news about my water heater. I got it in back in fall or early winter of last year. I was quite excited. It took me a few weeks to do all the installation stuff, partly because I needed my dad’s help for doing things such as installing the gas line. I had to do a good bit of work that I’m happy I got to do. I installed a black iron line running from my tank under the house to the heater. I simply connected the old line that went to the furnace and stove into this line. I installed a wall frame to hold the heater and put an exhaust and air intake system through the exterior wall. That wall still needs siding on the outside and insulation and finishing on the inside. The exhaust was very expensive, requiring special stainless pipe. I did some more plumbing. My dad got a new torch with one of the four way tips and piezo ignition. It’s mighty nice. The four way tips actually heat up the joint quickly and uniformly, with no real need to rotate around the pipe. and an easy to see green color surrounds it when it is up to temperature. It makes the whole job easier.

I also installed a wall outlet and a plug on the heater, which has led to quite a problem. The line going to the ‘utility closet’ there had been for the old electric water heater. I didn’t think of it, but that needed a 240V supply. The new water heater doesn’t. Even when flipping the two-pole breaker, I didn’t think of it. I heard a loud humming noise coming from the unit. I was worried something was wrong, especially since it wasn’t firing. I kept unplugging it. The unit has an error light on the computer board. I took off the front panel and looked around for the error light. It certainly wasn’t blinking. By the time I found it, though, a green flash came from elsewhere and the unit stopped humming. It now did nothing. The GFCI, which had been working before, stopped as well. I soon found that the fuse had blown. I got more fuses, but they blew instantly upon powering the unit. I soon came to the conclusion that the transformer must have burned out. After much email communication with the company that didn’t seem to get me very far, I finally ordered a new transformer over the phone. I worried that I wouldn’t end up getting it, as the guy I ordered it from didn’t speak english especially well, and I had to spell out all of my information. It arrived and I installed it. The fuses no longer blew instantly, and I had power to both the GFCI and the CPU board. In fact, on trying to run it, I found the error light was now working. It told me there is a problem with either the solenoid valve or the computer board. I will likely have to order a new board, which may be costly, but I want to test out all other possibilities first. Unfortunately, it’s hard to test some of these things. That’s where I’m at right now, still with no hot water after nigh on a year.