h20 heater pilot won't hold

[rriverstone]

So, the furnace & stove work; I know I have propane. But the pilot goes out when I let go of the pilot start button. Tried a whole bunch of times; held button down for minutes at a time.

I'm going to take the end off and try to clean it. Think it's called thermocoupler.

If that doesn't work, I can't afford parts, so what else should I be thinking about before committing to buying something?

[avalen]

my stove doesn't have pilots, they have sparkers, that light the burner, can't
remember about the oven, its been so long since I used it and since its in
storage I can't just look. My hot water heater uses propane or electric to heat,
but it only uses the propane if I hit the switch for it and that uses a sparker
as well, no pilot, the electric is on all the time when its plugged into shore
power unless I turn it totally off (which I have been known to do in the middle
of summer). In fact, I don't think any of my propane appliances have a pilot..
fridge, nope, furnace, nope, so they must all have sparkers of some sort to
get the fires goin. hmm, sorry I"m no help.

[rriverstone]

I give up. She won't hold a flame at the pilot. Can't light her.

It's xmas eve so don't expect much help today.

At the RV store, she showed me some bypass hosing & connectors. They wanted twenty five bucks for not much.

I got on my knees to find the cold h2o intake & hot h20 outlet for the h2o heater. It'll be a job, as I'm not too strong, but I can disconnect the cold, right at the tank. Then, I'll put bypass, fitted to a garden hose, attached to my garden hose solar h2o heater. The h20 will already be hot, going into the heater tank and should feed out the hot lines, to shower, sinks.

I'll need to know exactly the fitting size on the tank, and that's going to be fun to figure out. I hope I have a wrench that fits exactly, so I can use that to measure. I'd guess, no matter what kind of h20 heater, inlet and outlet lines have universal size.

I SO wanted to take a bath today! I've been working on it, cleaning, adjusting air mix, etc. for hours. I'm sore & tired. The trailer's so warm from the sun, I wouldn't even need a heater to take a bath. Maybe I'll heat a soup pan of water on the stove in there, stand in the shower where it's warmer than the house, and scrub off a bit. I'm tired of feeling dirty all the time and my skin is a mess.

So, unless someone comes up with a very good solution that fixes my water heater cheaply, I'll work on a solar heater system. That will take at least a week, even if I can order parts online. Crap. Some xmas.

[Forestgal]

I don't know if you've found this forum yet, but they often have lots of helpful information. I did a quick search & came up with this thread. Maybe there'll be something in it that will help you. Good luck ... and Merry Christmas.

http://www.trailerlife.com/cforum/index.cfm

Laura -- and Jed

[Bethers]

The hot water tank has lots of different components - I had to have mine repaired, and unfortunately took a couple times and money to get it right. The actual fix wasn't the most expensive repair bill, of course. Good luck.

[rriverstone]

I'm clean all over. The trailer got nice & warm in the afternoon sun & is well insulated. So, I brought out my big soup pot, filled it with h2o, heated it on the propane stove and cleaned out the shower.

I was extra evil: I turned the furnace full blast for a few minutes. I wanted to get completely wet and did NOT want any sort of chill, for ONCE! I mean, hell, it's xmas eve, y'know.

My shower has a small tub with a seat. I scrubbed from head to toe with brushes and scrubbers and shaved my whiskers.

Just washing my face left my skin scrubber gray, instead of blue. When I was done washing, I stood in the tub and poured warm water all over my dried out, clogged and tender skin.

Most of the pores had open, and now my legs and arms are silky, instead of rough. It was so bad, my skin was catching on my flannel gowns and electric blanket, pulling against them. It felt like I had stickers or splinters in the bed!

So, my hair's all fluffy and my scalp doesn't itch. My feet are pink, not gray. Everything's smoother and happier.

I made a big fire out of pieces of pulled-out cabinets. I have tuna steaks and rice cooking for supper and a big bag of marked-down, Hallowe'en Milky Ways. All four cats & both dogs are in bed with me. My newest NetFlix arrived and I'll watch it tonight.

I'll just build a solar water heater. On cloudy days, I can take another soup pot bath, like I did today. I never got cold. It was wonderful.

[Bethers]

Solar showers were used by folks often in MX - they work well. And saved on propane - another good deal.

[Acadianmom]

You said something about the size of the fittings for the water heater. I can tell you that they aren't something you will find at a Home Depot. It must be a metric size because it isn't the same as house plumbing. I had the bottom fitting coming out of my water heater blow apart and I had to get a replacement at an RV place. That one fitting was about $12.00. I tried to use something that would fit a garden hose to cap it and it wouldn't fit.

There is an electric rod that can be screwed in where the anode rod goes to convert a water heater to electric. I don't know what else is involved to make that conversion. There was a discussion about that a while back in the Maintenance area.

Martha

[GlennaRae]

The same thing happened when I bought my motorhome. We finally figured out there was no water in the hot water tank. After we opened the valve and heater filled with water worked perfectly. Wouldn't hurt to check.

Good luck,

Glenna

[rriverstone]

It's worth a try, checking the intake h2o valve; hadn't thought about that. Had h2o running as I tried to light, but if there's a cut off valve & sensor, that wouldn't have helped. thanks.

In fact, that makes sense. I wondered y there were 2 little doors that said "water tank drain" under 2 cabinets in the kitchen: y not just 1? well, 1 is right near the h2o heater. The other must be to fresh h2o. I'll fool with it once it warms up a bit. Thanks again!

[Bethers]

There is a bypass valve on all rv's - to bypass the water heater if you winterize, for example. You never want to heat the water heater without water in it - so look for that valve. Mine is hard to find, under my kitchen sink to the right - where there is a hole in the side wall for it.

Wouldn't it be great if it's that simple!

The electric anode rod needs the rest of the kit to work on electric. I love it - use it whenever my electric is paid for. It's on mine now. The anode rod doesn't need to be replaced, but also doesn't do the job of taking all the "gunk" out of the water the regular one does.

[WickedLady]

Have you tried cleaning the pilot tube? Might be spider webs or something but it really sounds like the thermocouple. Maybe the gap is too wide. Seems to me it should be no more than about 1/8th of an inch but could be wrong. You might need to buy a new thermocouple. Fairly cheap and easy to replace I'm told.

[rriverstone]

I cleaned it out. I adjusted the air flow seventy million times. Today, I made sure the tank valves were closed. bla bla bla. I'm sticin' with my plan: I'm going to make a solar h2o heater, run it thru the hot water tank and take soup pot baths when the sun don't shine.