DIY Gas Water Heater Repair - Pilot Light Won't Stay Lit - Status light not blinking (2023)

Introduction

Video

What's going on guys welcome back to the Hands-On Channel.

It has been a heck of a week for me here, uh for about the last four or five days.

Now, I've been messing with this hot water heater trying to get hot water to come back on and I.

Finally, got it last night and I wanted to share this with you guys because uh, this could happen to you.

It happened to me and I'm a pretty mechanical guy, but it it certainly, uh, threw me for a loop.

And what happened? Well about uh, four days ago or so five days ago I came in here after a shower, my shower ended up just being warm, not hot and I was like, huh? The pilot light must have went out.

So I came in here to re-light the pilot, light and there's a whole process to go through you have to put it on pilot, push the thing in hold it in hit the little igniter switch here.

Look in the little glass thing down there, the little window and you'll see a blue flame, and you have to hold that hold that button in until this status light comes on.

Well, the status light would never come on.

No matter how long I hold the thing.

Uh, it was like at one point, I, held it for like five minutes, and it never came on so I'm like what the heck is going on here.

And so I I got online I, couldn't, remember all the stuff, but I got online and I looked up what the voltage was supposed to be and it's in millivolts, uh, coming out of the thermo pile, there's a little device inside of here that basically sits right by the pilot, light it's like a little, uh, little, uh, probe that sticks out there right by the pilot, light and it's, a thermo pile.

They call it and it's, basically a series or a whole bunch of thermocouples, stacked up piled up on top of each other that's, why they call it a thermal pile.

So it works the same way as a thermocouple in that.

It picks up the heat off of the pilot, light and there's dissimilar Metals inside of that unit that makes it send it creates a little small voltage in millivolts, like, you know, we're talking like anywhere from 300 to 750 millivolts, is what it's supposed to create.

So I go get my volt meter I came out here.

I ran through the process.

I ran the pilot light with this unplugged and plugged into my volt meter and I was getting 700 millivolts I'm like okay, it's not that there thermal pile.

And so I also tested this switch here, which this would be the first thing you'd want to test, hopefully you can see that well enough there, the lighting's a little poor over here, but there's a switch here.

This is your thermal switch.

So if this switch here senses that things are too hot inside the chamber it'll, throw this little tiny breaker, and it will basically shut off the power to this gas valve here, which which obviously once this little bit of power gets shut off.

It closes the gas valve it's, a safety feature, right? So I.

Checked.

This I, push the button, held it in for 10 seconds.

Nothing happened.

It still was doing the same thing.

So I'm like what in the hell is going on and to be honest with you.

This unit is under warranty.

So it was under a 12-year warranty.

So I called the the people that we bought it from Sears.

And essentially what they were telling me was that.

Oh, yeah, we could come out there and and do it for you, but it's going to cost you a hundred dollar bill and any parts that we want to, you know that we have to put on we're going to charge you for those and blah, blah, blah.

So I, don't know, we essentially learned that the warranty really wasn't worth the darn uh.

They certainly weren't taking my word on it because I'd already done a lot of the diagnostic testing anyway, I got another gas valve.

And the way I did that was I ended up buying a whole nother water heater that was almost identical to this, although it's a shorter fatter one and I was gonna just swap them out, uh, in fact, I did I pulled this one all the way out and I put the other one in there.

But the way my fittings are up here, hopefully you can see that it wasn't going to work out because this one water line here goes up like that.

So it wasn't going to allow me to get a long enough, uh, hose that's, the longest little flex hose.

You can buy there, it's 24 inches and I could I would have had to change things around in here.

I would have had to like turn this valve or this line right here.

And it just wasn't going to work out to put that other water heater in so I thought, you know what all the parts are exactly the same on these two water, heaters I, checked the number on the side here, and it was the same exact gas valve.

So I was thinking.

It was the gas valve since my Thermo pile was testing good.

And this was testing good.

And the way you test this is you run an ohms test on it so you're looking for resistance.

It should be zero resistance.

If you have any resistance it's, probably that thermal switch, both of those parts were testing out good according to my volt meter.

So I'm like what in the hell do I do so I ended up going and taking the uh, the gas valve off of that new water heater that I brought in and it's it's about a year old.

It wasn't brand new, but somebody was Remodeling, and they went ahead and upgraded to a on-demand unit.

And so I picked that other water heater up for a hundred dollars I was like, yeah, let's just do that rather than paying the Sears person, a hundred dollars we'll just do that.

And then I'll have the parts.

Well anyway, really long story short.

What happened was I changed the valve out I messed with a bunch of other stuff and I never could get the status light to come on and I'm thinking.

Man, what in the hell is going on? It could only be three things there's, only three electrical components on this thing, the switch the thermal pile and the valve so I'd already changed the valve out.

Because although these don't go out very often, they say they can go out so I thought, maybe the valves out, you know, the water heater is five years old, maybe it's just out, you know, so I went ahead and changed it out.

Hooked everything back up check for gas leaks.

All that everything was good went to fire.

It up same exact thing and I'm, just like what in the hell do I do now.

So in my last final attempt to repair this thing last night, I, pulled out the burner assembly, which you have to disconnect all these gas lines and be really careful turn your gas off all that stuff do it safely and I pulled out this burner assembly.

And inside the burner assembly that's, where the thermal pile lives, it's got a little bracket that's kind of a little finicky to get it out of there, but you'll figure it out it's, not super hard.

You just have to kind of work with it and there's a little clip that holds it in there.

Well, I changed the thermal pile out.

Even though it was testing good on my volt meter and wouldn't.

You know it as soon as I, put it all back together.

The status light came on and started blinking.

So the reason I'm making this video for you is I've seen a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton of videos, because I've been watching all of them on YouTube that says, basically if you're creating, you know, more than about 600 millivolts with this thermopile then it's good.

But I want to tell you that's, not necessarily true, I, don't know, if I had problem with the connection here, although I I mess with the connection, I manipulated it with some needle nose, pliers and squeezed them in a little tighter, just to make sure they were getting a good a good connection there.

And they seemed I don't think that was it I have no idea.

I still can't explain why the thermal pile that I pulled out of there was testing at 700 millivolts and not firing this thing up I have no earthly idea.

Why that happened, but like I was telling my wife, if it wasn't for bad luck.

I wouldn't, have any luck.

So I wanted to share this with you guys to just let, you know that you know, I'm a pretty mechanical guy.

But sometimes I butt my head on these things and I'm like it can't possibly be.

This I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.

If I'd have just went down first things, first and changed the thermo pile out.

But since it was testing good on my volt meter I'm, like why would I change a good part out? So just a warning to you guys, an FYI, if you have a water, heater, that's a gas or a propane, natural gas or propane unit like this one, it doesn't have to be the same brand.

This is a Kenmore, but it doesn't matter what brand it is.

They all basically work the exact same way.

You've got three electrical components in there.

And if those three electrical components are working the water heater is going to work.

The only other thing that is possible that it could be is that there's a pre-filter around the base ring of this thing and it's kind of hard to see unless you get down in there and feel it I can't show you even maybe you can see it I, don't know, but there's a filter down there.

And that filter can get clogged up if it I don't know how it tells, but if it can sense that it's not getting enough airflow through there that can help that can stop this status light from coming on somehow I have no idea how it tells that because it only has three electrical components there so I'm, not sure I think it would still try to fire to be honest with you I think the status light would probably still come on.

But uh, when I had it all apart, I cleaned everything out and there's also a thing inside there called a spark arrestor and it's, basically on the bottom of the sheet metal of the hot water, heater and it's, just like a grid or a grill type situation, it's a slotted little thing and I clean that out with a wire brush and everything while I was in there and I vacuumed everything out while I was in there, but yeah, guys I wanted to share this with you.

If you have a situation like this and your status, light will not come on.

No matter.

What you do my advice is, you know, check everything with your volt meter first, but go ahead and just change the thermo pile because it's, not that hard of a job.

It's certainly much easier than changing out a whole water, heater and it's easier than changing out this gas valve here and it's.

Also the most common thing to go bad on these things.

So even if your volt meter says, it's good, once you've checked, everything else, go ahead and change that Thermo pile and you'll save yourself three or four days of misery like I've been doing taking cold showers and stuff like that and man, I'll tell you what my wife and I were talking about I, don't know how the the frontier people made it man.

They had to go out and take a bath in a cold stream.

You know, with the wind blowing and stuff I can't, even take a cold shower for very long, I mean, I'm telling you I was hitting the ceiling.

Every time that cold water would hit certain parts of my body.

So anyway, and it would take me half a day to warm up after it happened.

So anyway, I hope that this helps you out, uh, if you've got a situation similar to that, I would just immediately order or go and buy a thermo pile.

And one other thing I want to tell you when I was thinking, it was this I called around to some of my local plumbing supply places and I asked them about this part, and they were like.

Well, yeah, we can get it for you.

And they asked me if I was a licensed, plumber and I'm, like no I'm, not and they're like, oh, well, we can't sell it to you because what they're worried about, you know, it's the nanny state they're worried about you, not getting the gas lines attached back properly, and somehow you'll blow yourself up or burn yourself down so don't do that.

And the way you test that is you take a squirt bottle with some soapy water, or you can just take a, um, you know, any kind of a soapy substance, you know, put it on your fingers or whatever and you rub.

It around the fittings while it's running while it's going.

So you know, gas is flowing through there and you're wanting to be very very careful about that sort of stuff.

You know, make sure you have no gas leaks after you're done.

So just anyways, just an FYI mine ended up being the thermal pile.

And again, it just really really, uh wrecked.

My whole week because I was in here, laying on my side, I lay it on my side so much working on this thing that I've actually bruised, my left hip just laying over looking at this thing.

So I hope that this helps you guys out.

And you won't go through the same thing that I went through and in hindsight now, I'll know for myself next time, the next time something like this happens.

The first thing I'm going to change is the thermo pile for one they're, not very much money like 20, 30 bucks and uh, it could have saved me a lot of trouble.

But now I've got the new valve on there and I'm not going to change it because it's not leaking nothing's leaking.

And after you mess with your water heater, you want to make sure that you have no leaks or anything like that and I had I had to end up pulling the thing out I did have a fitting up here that was leaking.

So I, went ahead and changed that fitting out, uh, while I had had the unit out of the closet.

It was much easier and just another little FYI for you.

If you have to end up changing these fittings, uh, it's, much easier believe it or not I've gone through this before and had to have like a big, what I ended up doing before to keep the water heater from twisting as I was trying to turn that pipe was I had to take a big ratchet strap and put it around this thing just so I could have something to hold on to so I, wasn't twisting the water heater, even though it was full of water, but because I pulled it out of the out of the closet at one point and was looking at it.

I just ended up laying the thing over on its side and then I straddled.

It and I was able to kind of just barely put some pressure down on it.

You know, by sitting on it a little bit, and then I was able to get that fitting out much much easier.

So guys, good luck to you if you're having water heater problems, I know, I know how it is man, it's a bad deal.

So I wish, you luck, change.

The thermo Thermo pile.

First, the older units had what they called a thermocouple and I would imagine it's probably the same thing that's.

The first thing, the most likely thing to go bad on these units and good luck to you on your repairs, be very, very careful trip, triple check that you have no leaks coming out around any of these fittings here, because you know, last thing you want to do is try to do a repair and end up burning your house down and blowing something up or whatever so be super careful about it.

If you have to get this part here, you may have to order it online, because you may not be able to find a local place to sell it to you I.

Don't know, it depends on what your area is like, but apparently the nanny state is alive and well here in my state.

So good luck to you guys on your repairs, I hope you get some hot water going I.

Appreciate you tuning in, and until then we'll see you next time.