No, I have not yet tried jumpering the draft control switch. Will look at the wiring diagram and see what I can figure. Thanks.

 

Upon further investigation, I have found out that the jobber part puts out 15 ohms of resistance. The original part is putting out 62 ohms of resistance. I have also figured that as soon as it calls for the igniter to heat up, it immediately calls for the igniter to stop. All I saw was about 1.4 volts when it should be 110v. Now the question is that because the resistance from the igniter is to high and the jobber one too low? I have no clue. Or is my computer on the hot water tank screwed because it is not hitting the igniter with 110v

 

I had a commercial water heater at an apartment building with the same symptoms and not light and it turned out to be the Flue Damper on the top of the heater, it would start to light down to the igniter ticking and then it would stop and the damper would close until the next attempt. I called the service department and talked to the technician and he told me which wires to cut and short together. Blocking the damper open would cause it to lockout because it had to go through the cycle.

Are there any LED’s on the control board to give diagnostic codes?

I had about 80 angry people watching my every move because they just went 3 days without hot water when I just installed this new heater.
Jim

 

there is only one red light that starts blinking after 3 failed ignition cycles. Not very helpful in troubleshooting. Not sure what is worse 80 angry people or 1 angry wife! LOL All kidding aside, she is being a good sport about it all.

 

Are you saying you still have the original ignitor? The normal failure mode of them is to burn out as in 0 ohms. Most of the time you have a plate with 2 wires and no coil.

It may have a short circuit protection mode. You're not going to see 110v across the terminals until the ignitor coil heats up and raises the resistance.


My wife has been very patient when I am in appliance repair mode ... as long as I get it fixed.

 

It may have a short circuit protection mode. You're not going to see 110v across the terminals until the ignitor coil heats up and raises the resistance.

So do you think my igniter is fine with its 62 ohms? I am almost resigned to the fact that I will not have hot water until thursday or friday if I am lucky. Just don't want to be throwing parts at it either..........

 

Oven glow coils work by amp draw, 3.2 to 3.6 amps typically. The valve won't open until the amp draw is satisfied. In other words, I've had plenty of glow coils glow but not open the valve. Not sure if glow coils on water heaters work the same though?

 

Now that you mention it, when I was on the help line they mentioned something about amperage draw to satisfy fuel valve not an ohms thing.

 

So your old one had 62 ohms resistance? What is the spec on the new one for it? It should function across a decent ohm range. Resistance goes up over time as the igniter is used.

Fueling around:
Can you think of any way to fool the controller due to the lower cold resistance of the ignitor?

The best thing to do is keep a spare ignitor on top of you furnace as a spare

 

I've been out of the loop.

What's the latest?

 

Today is the first day I have had hot water in over a month and a half..... I would like to thank all that tried to help. I waited exactly 3 weeks for a part that could be overnighted..... See the fiasco on previous page. It still went on for another week. Anyways, last night I put in my new igniter and again nothing. Mrs Swamp Donkey came down hard on me...... and once again threatened to call in a plumber. But I told her to calm down and have a nice warm bath. That went over like a lead balloon. Anyways, I get on the horn this morning AGAIN for the 10th time and tell them my symptoms ohms amperage draws etc. So $300 dollars later I come home tonight with a new fuel valve. Drain the tank install new fuel valve and reconnect everything, plug it in and same thing. Slowly smash my head into concrete basement floor. Then get to trouble shooting some more and there are only 2 components left that I have not replaced. The air pressure switch and the high limit switch. Turns out if I would have listened to the 1st poster, I could have bypassed all this grief. Turns out the DTR dudes, nailed it on the first try, and I am not kidding, I talked to tech support at least a half a dozen times and they keep giving me these crap answers, all confident and knowing. So anyways, I have a jumper wire that has to be open to let the fan start blowing, then after a couple of seconds I have to connect the jumper wire to satisfy that there is air pressure. Tried blowing on the switch, but 15 inches of water column with moose lips was hard to do. Not out of the woods yet, but there is hope and a little hot water one jumper at a time!

 

OK, now you located the problem.
Before you replace the switch, I would disconnect all the tubing and drain any collected water or remove other obstructions. There is often a drain manifold on these sensors and water, skum or insects can block things.

edit
You can try returning the gas valve, but don't count on it. If you explain it was purchased based on poor tech support, they may offer a return.