Harmonic noise from newly installed RayPak 366A NG

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Crani07

Well-known member
Feb 28, 2015
51
Winston-Salem, NC
Just had my Jandy Laars replaced which worked great for 15 years until LCD display went out. Had a new RayPak installed all went fine we ran the heater for about 30 mins produced heat, no noises. Went to fire it up last week and within about a minute it was haunted harmonic sounds. Ive gone through everything that Ive researched. Have great water flow have back washed cleaned filters. Yes variable speed but running it at full. 1 3/4 HP 1.5" PVC. I had the installer come out we looked at universal governor and did temp test and it moved. The gasket was twisted so got it back on square with plumbers silicone. It may have improved slightly but had him order new UVG and gasket just to be sure. When my gas line was being tested prior to install they said I had very good high PSI and could run a bunch of these units. As part of my diagnostics I went to the manual shut off on gas line and slowly turned it down to a point the noise went away, still producing heat (not sure if enough) did not get any flame errors or anything on LCD to say there was an issue. The second thing I tried was to go to one of my fill lines to the pool and slowly shut the valve and that also worked but I could hear my pump straining.
So I'm wondering when I replace the UVG and does not improve would you then take a manometer the the regulator to double check that PSI is in range. Im very confident its not a pump flow issue. The interesting thing is it ran great its first 30 mins of life then week later this started. The noise is not soft and loud and annoying. I understand it comes from steam being generated in the copper coils and not enough water feeding the rate its burning. Needless to say we are not using the heater just to be safe that I don't cause further problems. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you!
 
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High pressure can be just as bad as too little pressure. I would definitely recheck the inlet pressure and if it’s above spec then you need to have a gas regulator added to the gas line before going into the heater. The fact that you could choke down the gas flow using the shutoff valve and make the noise go away is not a good sign.
 
Makes sense. What do you mean by “ not a good sign”. Meaning i need a regulator or something serious? I’m guessing that the regulator in the RayPak won’t let me dial it down enough requiring the additional upstream regulator prior to getting to the heater. Sorry for dumb questions just like to have a full understanding.
 
Crani07 said:
Makes sense. What do you mean by “ not a good sign”. Meaning i need a regulator or something serious? I’m guessing that the regulator in the RayPak won’t let me dial it down enough requiring the additional upstream regulator prior to getting to the heater. Sorry for dumb questions just like to have a full understanding.
Click to expand...

By “not a good” sign I mean that a shutoff valve’s purpose is to turn flow on or off, not throttle flow. So if your heater is making that noise and using the ball valve as a throttle makes the noise go away, then something is not right and you could have too much gas pressure. We have seen people do that with shut off valves in the past where they choke them down to “almost closed” which fixes a flow problem and then they figure that’s good enough. It’s not.

If it is a pressure issue then you can honestly put the regulator wherever you like - at the gas meter source or at the pool heater, whatever is the most convenient. It would only matter if the gas line running to the pool pad had other things branching off of it. But if the line is dedicated to the pool heater, then pick whatever spot you like.

You just want to make sure that your static pressure and your dynamic pressure are within spec. These heaters typically run around 4” to 7” WC (the heater manual will have exact specs) and so if your pressure is a lot higher than that, you need to bring it down and the way to do that is by adding in a regulator.
 
Thank you. You are very generous with your time. It does have a regulator that’s been sitting outside in the sun for 16 years. So that could be the issue that it’s gone bad. I can’t see the markings on it regarding its range or rating. It’s a dedicated line “3/4 direct from main house regulator. I’m assuming like any device with moving parts they can go bad. I’ll get someone out to check the pressures and verify within spec. If it’s the regulator that’s a win for me. Again I thank you for your time. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.
 
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Gas pressure was within limits. Regulator is working fine upstream. Turns out the UVG provided by supply company was wrong made for cast header. Raypak had us remove UVG and then run heater and sound gone. Also not to run heater until new UVG INSTALLED. They said confirms UVG issue? Correct UVG ordered and hopefully that’s it.
 
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Update. We replaced the UVG from Raypak with no improvement. Everything else is on spec. The perplexing thing is that there was no harmonics the day of installation when we ran it for about 15-20 mins. I’m not getting any error codes. The other thing is that if not running with UVG then no sound but that’s just for diagnostic purposes. Any thoughts would be great. What’s your feeling on running for now with those harmonics going would I potentially cause damage. I have not run heater since installed other than for troubleshooting.
Thanks again.
 

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First photo is with gas turned down to point of no harmonics. Second photo full gas. Third is a leak on the right side. We switched the manifold at installation to left because of the way my existing pump filter etc was located. Not sure if that caused anything other than this leak I just discovered which I’m guessing is coming from where original manifold was located. The installer followed the Raypak guide for flipping header manifold but the leak I just noticed. Not a lot but being salt water I don’t want any leaks.
 

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I’m not a plumber so static and dynamic pressures of? Gas, water? So supposedly the regulator was putting out gas in the spec range located on the gas line feeding heater unit. Is there a way to check the gas pressure coming out of the heaters regulator to make sure that’s in range? The second picture with gas full open it’s blowing pretty hard. Are you thinking that could be the issue? The weird thing I keep going back to is upon installing it ran great putting out heat and silent. That was about a 15 minute run. That’s what’s driving me crazy is the beginning. If it always had the harmonics from its initial startup would just make more sense even though it doesn’t solve the problem. Do you think running it for now with the gas cut back is harmful? It’s not been on since installing other than diagnostic stuff.
Once again thank you for your time.
 
Gas pressure, there is an inlet port on gas valve. You want to test static pressure and turn on the heater for dynamic. There is also a port on the load side of gas valve for manifold pressure. The specs are above and you can adjust regulator at gas valve . If any appliances were on at the same time this could alter readings.
 
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You need a digital manometer, preferably one that can read differential pressure, as well as some 1/8” tubing and small 1/8” and/or 3/8” hose barbs. I have a cheap one off Amazon -

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Pretty simple to use and you should know right away if the gas is at the right pressure.
 
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Unitherm Governor Operation
CAUTION: The patented Unitherm Governor is a thermostatic mixing valve specifically designed to maintain constant heater internal temperature between 105°F (41°C) and 115°F (46°C) despite continually changing flow rates from the filter and changing pool temperatures.

This narrow range is needed to prevent damaging condensation on the burners which will occur if the heater runs for any length of time below 100°F (38°C).

It is also needed to inhibit scale formation in the tubes by maintaining temperatures well below accelerated scaling temperatures.
 
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