How do I light my water heater?

pappaone wrote:
jim, one thing that no one has mentioned, before you do get the tank lit, make sure it is filled with water.

Yes, I did that.

jim, one thing that no one has mentioned, before you do get the tank lit, make sure it is filled with water.

The first thing that comes to mind is that you have had the propane tanks turned off. Now that you have opened the propane bottle you have air in the lines. Running the stove for a while will purge the lines. You might even have a bit of problem getting the stove burner to light at first.

Ours has electronic ignition - are your batteries charged. We have a switch inside for electric a separate switch for gas and whichever we want, or in our case can be both, needs to be turned on also.

Make sure your gas valve at the tank is open. Then power up the 12 volt coach portion of the electrical. You probably have a fail safe shut off solenoid which requires the 12 volt coach power to be on to open solenoid. Then turn on the water heater.

I would guess the sensor is rusted and no longer making connection. Your water heater senses the ionization of the flame through the electrodes where it sparks. (Senses in between sparks) the fact that you get flame means you have propane and the valve is working properly, so the fact it shuts off means it is not sensing the flame. I would unbolt the spark assembly and take a wire brush to the all the connections. Make sure the electrode is touching the flame, once it is lit. If that does not fix it, then the ignighter board sensing circuit is bad, at which point you can replace the board. If you want to confirm it is bad, hot wire the valve to on temporarily. But be careful to light it first and then hot wire the valve on, not vise versa, or you may get a large poof when all the extra gas lights :)

Does it have a thermocouple that could be bad like a home/residential gas appliance?

The thermocouple is supposed to sense heat from the pilot light and keep gas flowing to it. If it doesn't sense heat, it shuts gas valve to pilot light.

Other things to think of also. Make sure your Propane sensor is turned on. Some coaches need this on before it will allow the propane to flow. Take the air out of the system by lighting a burner on the stove.

Make sure the system has gas. Run your stove top to make sure gas is present. It may take a few times of cycling the DSI system to clear air and get the gas to the water heater.