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bjarnold
Explorer
Aug 23, 2016

Atwood Water Heater Help!!

I have a 6 gallon Atwood water heater with electronic ignition and it's a LP model only. It worked fine for 5-10 minutes then shut down and now I can not get it to light again. I can hear the gas valve open and close and it is getting spark just not lighting. I have cleaned the electrical terminals, grounds, and cleaned out the burner tube and gas orfice
  • The stove and other LP appliances seem to work OK. I tried to manually light the water heater and very little gas is going to the burner
  • You might need to replace the gas valve. You could try removing it and cleaning it up, but the solenoid could be going bad also and if that's the case, replace.
  • The number one question to ask are you sure there is water in the tank?
  • Cleaned the gas tube again and adjusted the air mix sleeve and now it's working again. Hopefully that solved the problem
  • Make sure the burner tube is properly aligned with gas valve so that the propane goes not the center of tube.
    If tube is crooked the propane will bounce off the sides of tube and not properly mix with air

    Propane pressure is very low (0.4 psi) so it doesn't take much to disrupt air/fuel ratio

    Also make sure RED wires to ECO and gas valve connections are tight/clean (black to ground on solenoids also)
    Doesn't take much resistance to stop 12V DC either
    Both solenoids have to fully open for gas flow

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