No heat... troubleshooting suggestions?

[AlbertD]

So just finished decontamination and refilled the hot tub, balanced, bromine, all that good stuff. But no heat. . My in-laws (who owned the spa - hasn't been moved, we're buying their house) said it worked when they unplugged it a few months ago. But it doesn't now...

All the jets work, LCD panel works. I can set the temp (so it's not 'locked') but no go. I can see water circulate in it (when jets are off). I unplugged for a couple hours and replugged it back in (manual said this as a suggestion), but nothing.

Suggestions?

Tiger River Spa Sumatran model. Roughly 6 years old I'd guess.

 

[cowboycasey]

6 years is the middle of the road for heaters, is there a place nearby you could have someone test it?

 

[AlbertD]

Not sure where locally to test the heater. I did some further research online, and ended up taking the access panel off and poking around. Took some pics.

I tried to make sure there wasn't an air lock, and that i could see flow through the heater. I put the hose end in the gray spout in the middle of where the filter goes in, seen some bubbles and such run through the lines. I also pulled off one end of the outgoing line, and a good amount of water came through. So I'm pretty sure its not air locked. Also unplugged it for about 10 minutes after all that.

I do have some questions about the various pictures below...



I can see on this image, the heater LED (red) light is on. Indicating power to the heater (might be hard to tell from picture).

This is the line that goes "into" the heater and "out of" the heater. I could see flow and when I took off the "out" hose I had flow out of the heater, and return drainage from the pipe. So seems OK. Now, the heater was NOT warm to touch. Not sure if that matters. The heater is a Watkins "No Fault" heater, w/o the "reset" button.

Take a look at this one. This is an Elbow on the "inlet" line to the heater. This "T"'s off a small hose going up and over the electrical box. It seems caked with gunk. Perhaps plugged (i could NOT tell if there was flow in it). Should there be? should I take the one end of this off and see what happens? (I can't see where the other end goes, other than towards the filter area.

Another view of this line, notice its full of gunk...

Thanks guys.. I didnt notice any heat after about an hour last night. So I'm guessing it wasn't an air lock issue. I did run across a step by step test to check the voltage on the heater, I may try that this evening.