My latest Service call - From HeLL

Bradford white water heater shutting off every day- diagnose and test components - troubleshoot

[@jimh598]

Finally, a nice working condition. Clean with lots of room to work.

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they were thrilled to have someone out to finally take care of the problem.

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

Thanks for watching !!

[@everythinghomerepair1747]

This is something I dealt with about four years ago. It was a brand new plumber installed Bradford White 40 gallon in 2013. Same gray colored Honeywell gas valve. It would go out once or twice a year just like your customer said in the video. Around 2017 or so it became more frequent and was going out a few times a month. At that time I cleaned the screen on the bottom because I thought it was starved of air. It seemed to work for about a year or so and then it went out again. I was fed up at that point so I loosened the screws on the door to let air in the front. By early 2021 it was still having issues so I looked into doing a full white Rodgers metal gas valve and thermocouple upgrade. The prices were so high for the valve and thermopile assembly and since the heater was 8 years old at the point I opted to do an entire water heater replacement with a new 12 year warranty Rheem water hear (it has the Honeywell valve again unfortunately). It’s been lit for four years now without a single hitch and is quieter and more efficient. I flush it every year and it has a long warranty so I expect no more problems now.

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

Thanks for the story! Sounds like you went through a lot, but at least you got it solved!

[@jeffreyplumber1975]

holy crap ! your a trooper just gotta roll with it how in hell it can be burner assembly ? intermitant issue with t pile somehow issue is with some of these very hard to pinpoint especially with used parts which I have nothing against its just hard when most of the time its not just a simple pass or fail on the testing. I got my call from hell coming up and will share what happened if thats ok its a good freind and neighbor and I just gotta fix it maybe day after christmas 2 days froim now! Thanks for sharing the good bad and ugly of the battle !

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

Yes please share ! Thanks for watching!

[@mr.roberts3886]

Question, I'm a parts manager for a plumbing and heating company and I did not know you could order the circuit board separately from the gas valve? Or do you just keep portions of good parts when you scrap water heaters? If so, that's awesome. You go the extra mile which is admirable

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

@@mr.roberts3886 : yeah I don’t know if you can order the circuit board. I’ve tried to do some research on those circuit boards and haven’t found very much information so yeah I just keep the parts. It’s amazing how many parts are thrown away every single day keeps me up at night. I if the water heater is leaking chances are the Burner Assembly and Valve are still in working condition so I just have boxes and boxes of used parts. In fact I need to go through And and just purge a lot of stuff and then I repurpose them sometimes they’re bad you know that’s the problem with used parts. It might go three or four days and then have a problem and then I gotta go back out again and do more work but if it’s from a water heater that’s leaking chances are there was no issues with those components so yeah I do a lot of recycling so the parts are basically free just the labor to remove them and I go trolling for them all the time I’ll go to plumbing supply companies and there’s a drop off section for Water Heaters and I just cruising there and strip them down. I swear to God there is a gold mine in used parts just being thrown away every single day I got a guy that comes down from Los Angeles and buys those Rogers white Unitrol valves for me 20 bucks a pop which is a deal, but there’s just hundreds of those things being thrown away every single day.

[@tmactheplumber4966]

Mr. Robert's, this guy is the best I've seen.

[@mainj54]

Is a drip leg not required in your jurisdiction? Looks like the first valve was a used valve. Did you pull the burner out and clean with compressed air initially?

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

@@mainj54 : sediment traps are required also expansion tanks and earthquake straps and discharge lines for the temperature pressure relief valve- I just do like for like I don’t upgrade the water heaters. It’s not included if someone wants me to do it or ask me to do it or is interested in doing it yes I don’t recall whether I clean the combustion chamber with compressed air.- but that’s always a good idea. Never hurts. Thanks for watching.

[@theberrybest]

Just a heads up. 90% of the time its the pilot assembly. 100% covered under the 6 year warranty. We replace all the parts everytime just to avoid the "Hell" part of the job.

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

@@theberrybest : really ? So what part of the pilot assembly is it the Thermo Pile? You do this full-time where do you work? Appreciate the comment. Thanks for watching!

[@theberrybest]

@thewaterheaterfactory The pilot assembly is complete with pilot, thermo pile and ignitor. They are one. 2003 is when these water heaters changed from open combustion to sealed combustion. I've been a plumber for 40+ years and have a great relationship with bradford white. Just recently changed a bad valve out of the box. The replacement valve comes with a new pilot assembly as well. In my opinion, bradford white is the best water heater on the market for quality and warranty. IMHO.

[@DeWittPotts]

That's the curse of 'intermittent' problems. Unless you can replicate the problem you are forced to just make an educated guess on what the solution is going to be.

[@thewaterheaterfactory]

@@DeWittPotts : so very true my friend with a lot of these service calls. If I show up in the water heater is running it’s so hard to guess what it may have been you just gotta pick a component and replace it and hope that you get it, but I’ll tell you what those Honeywell Valve ‘s are garbage man they just they’re breaking all over the place. I sell a lot of Water Heaters to a guy Up North and what he does if he replaces every single one of them with the Rogers white valve and put a thermal couple in and that’s it no more problems.