Hot Water Heater Weird gas firing

[Mike_Up]

The camper has sat for about a month and I wanted to start the water heater with gas as a prep before our trip.

It was weird but the combustion tube flame was blue but it wrapped all the way out with a yellow/orange flame out the flue gas area of the combustion tube.

I'm thinking there was either a wasp nest or hornets nest in the combustion tube where I couldn't see it and the nest must of started on fire.

Has anyone seen this before?

I quickly shut it off. I then restarted it and all was normal.

I guess I have a really bad time with fires on these TTs. My earlier 19BH had the ignitor of the refrigerator catch on fire and burn up the black plastic grommet. A spider got into the burner tube.

Then on the new 26BH, the battery went bad and the charger put out full 45 amp charging and caught the ATC fuse holder on fire that was only rated for 30 amps, that Jayco installed.

I always keep a fire extinguisher on hand for sure.

[Nvr2loud]

The flame will also travel a lot further through the tube if the water is very cold. Once the water is heated a little bit, and therefore the burner tube is heated a little bit, the flame should shorten up a little.

It is worse when an obstruction is in the tube, but you've already got that covered.

[Bheffington]

Why are you heating hot water?
Like others have said, seems like the problem has been solved, but it's always good to check things thoroughly before using them.

[Mike_Up]

Well I'm going to fire it up again here in a minute but I'm guessing it was insects in there and has been normal.

Don't know if I wanted to stick a brush down there and be swarmed by wasps or hornets. It could had been an unpleasant experience. 😉

Thanks everyone for you comments.

[Jake8147]

Had a similar experience a few years back (very irregular flame) when I fired up the water heater at home as part of my "all systems check" along with my season beginning de-winterizing process. I disassembled the burner tube and a half incinerated stink bug carcass rolled out the end of the tube. Put it back together and no problem since.

[JJBIRISH]

Sounds exactly like what happened… the first light burned the nest and the next blew the remnants away…

If you can blow it out and/or run a flexible brush through it then blow it out…

Never had to actually do it myself though…

[jbbrick]

If you can, blow it out with an air compressor but it sounds like you may have burned out the spider webs already.

[Old-Biscuit]

Kinda makes you pucker a bit when you see that flame flicker out the tube.

That's why it's a good idea to do a quick clean out (fridge,furnace,water heater) when rig hasn't been used in a while....even short term.