BogeyOne:Must be electric. Some say they are designed to burn out like light bulbs.
Well, I, I just don't know what to say here, so, I'll say it...
Electric water heaters DO NOT NEED an exhaust port, chimney or other type!
IT'S ELECTRIC!!!
Moving on.... LMBO bogey the plumber... :-))
HenryKawa: Flame sensor... okay. I thought Dan was referring to the thermocouple.
You replaced the thermocouple Henry. As Dan said so succinctly, you can clean those SOMETIMES. It is an amalgamated mush of special chemicals to keep burning at a very low temperature, only used to ignite the flame bank when called upon by your thermostat. Also to shut off the gas valve inside the valve to not allow gas to keep infiltrating into your house, and potentially explode, when it shuts off.
The flame sensor is something completely different, and should only be cleaned with WD40 and soft towel as to NOT SCRATCH the glass front. Oil burners have those types.
The gas furnaces flame sensors can not be cleaned as they are an enclosed part onto itself.
As for as the water heater Henry, if you can afford it, update it to gas, propane, what ever it is you use. Sell the other one. All the new gas is no longer vented through "B Vent", the 3 inch metal piping. If yours is only a year old, it should have the 3 inch PVC going into the chimney. Leave it, it is high efficiency...
3 inch PVC is now used, as the exhaust heat is very cool now. One thing to remember about the PVC Henry.
When it leaves the house it must be above the ground level by 3 feet, when the 90 degree bends are put on to keep the rain & snow out of them. Here in the U.S. anyway. This makes sure snow does not cover the intake or exhausts.
If you get large snow drifts, raise them higher, for safety. Heat is no longer an issue to have them above the roof line. The old "B vent" has to go up. Hot stuff.
Be very wary of the ONE PIECE intake & exhaust combination, on the out side of the house. It looks clean, however one of my customers had and 8 foot drift on the end of her house, covering it.
The heat melted the snow near the vent. Fire dept. came down to shovel it out for her. The heater would not start again, A plumber was called in, he couldn't get it started. It was a new system. Old plumber...
When the exhaust melted the snow, & it was like an igloo, the vents behind the face of the nice looking shield were frozen. When I lit the furnace it would run, until I put the door back on the furnace. Then a vacuum would suck the face of the door in, causing no oxygen to get to the flame bank from outside through the intake pipe. The furnace tried to pull it through the door.
That was the give away to me, that there was an obstruction in the intake.
A hair dryer fixed the problem by heating the ice behind the face of the venting thingamabobber...
Short of the matter, Change it all out Henry to new high efficiency. You'll never have another worry while on vacation. To me, that's money well spent brother.
Joe's DYI home builder extraordinaire...... With savior faire...
I'll be here all week
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