Main Ignition Failure Rheem M406A-EN-C Heater

[benzinok]

Hey everyone;
I have Rheem M-406A-EN-C natural Gas heater that quit working this evening. After pulling the cover off, and verifying spark and pilot ignition, I am wondering what things I should be looking at this point for possible issues. The control panel gave a Main Ignition Failure message.
Thanks

 

[uncfan1573]

Is your gas valve on inside heater? If yes Check the injectors and make sure they are not clogged with cob webs.

 

[benzinok]

Found the problem:
I would think I should be shocked at this as it is 2 years old? And of course out of warranty.
Next question is this will take about $1100.00 in parts vs. $1800-2000 for a 400,000btu unit. Would anyone recommend fixing this given the condition of the outer case of the entire unit?

 

[benzinok]

I took the top part of the unit off, and the grate where it breaths from the top was covered with leaves. I think maybe what happened is it was trapping the heat and "cooked" the bottom of the unit.
I may be crazy but after researching for hours on heaters, I did not find any heaters that stood out and am leaning towards buying the same unit. There are many parts that are still good and at least I will some spare parts for the future. I was leaning towards a Hayward unit, but the web is full of complaints on the control panel crapping out.
Any suggestions?

 

[racket]

This to me looks like the exhanger failed on a salt pool, or the heater is installed in a corrosive enviroment.

Unless hayward decides to make an incredible heater I won't touch them.
Raypak is a fine heater but does have issues with the refractory panels cracking and causing the heater to soot up and melt down.
Jandy hasn't made a decent heater in 7+ years.
Pentair heaters are pretty good, but are a little bit more complicated to repair.

Unfortunately there are no "great" pool heaters.

 

[ps0303]

Well that's not good. Looks like you had a condensation issue. Is there a vale that you can open to bypass some of the water past the heater? The thing I would do is just replace the heater with a new one and when you do I would find a way to keep the leaves out. Now I don't recommend this but I have seen it down where a customer used chicken wire or something that prevented leaves from getting inside. That would be the only suggestion you could look at. Leaves clogging the inside wouldn't be covered under warranty anyway. Now you could try calling Raypak and see if they might do something for you if you're really nice to them, maybe. How does the heat exchanger look? Was there any water leaking from the unit?

Raypak/Rheem has the better heater on the market today. At least if you replace it with the same brand everything eill line up and you won't have to cut any PVC pipe.

 

[benzinok]

It is a salt water pool but I have never seen anything that would even remotely suggest a leak. I have not broke into the heat exchanger yet.
A neighbor brought up a good point that it below a Pecan tree, and the hulls are very acidic. That sounds probable and possible? There has definitely been something out of the ordinary that caused a catastrophic failure on the unit. As much as want to blame Ray-Pak/Rheen/Ruud, something this bad in 30 months is extraordinary.
I agree that there seems to be no great heater out there, so I'm gonna sleep on it, and probably order another one. at least I will have some spare parts, mainly circuit boards and control panels which seem to be common threads.
Thanks for all of the advise, hope to return the favor someday.

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

It also gives you a chance to consider going with a heat pump.