This weekend when I went to turn on my pool heater, which was working fine last week, I noticed that it didn't seem to heat. When I listened to it I could hear the blower turn on and then after a few seconds I normally hear the ignition sound and the little green light next to "Heat" turns on but now I hear what sounds like the ignition sound and the light comes on but after 2-3 seconds it turns off and then about 30 seconds later it does the same thing. My heater has an electric ignitor so I took that out and read online that you should try cleaning that so I rubbed it with some steel wool and it just crumbled apart. I went ahead and ordered the replacement part (Hayward IDXLIGN1930) which I plan to install tonight but I wanted to see if anyone else had this issue and if I ordered the right part. I don't get any error codes on the heater itself. Thanks!
Hayward H250 Heater Not Igniting
- Thread starter xnotenoughx
- Start date
I have the same heater, but it's the millivolt, analog version, so I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to help. I will offer this: the manual has a really good parts explosion and troubleshooting decision tree. If you don't have it yet, find it. It may help answer some of your questions.
Yeah, that type of igniter we really don't clean. They are ceramic and fairly fragile. Chances are good it was bad if it crumbled as easily as you say it did. Probably already had a crack in it which will weaken the structure. Somewhere around here I have a picture of what one looks like with a crack in it. There is usually a white substance built up on both sides of the crack from the arc that happened when it failed.
Thanks. I will reply back if the new ignitor fixes my issue, if not, I am going to need some more help 
good to hear. These igniters are a wear item that need to be replaced every few years. Up here in the north if your furnace uses one, and most do now, you learn to keep a couple spares on hand as they only seem to go out late on a Sunday afternoon/evening
If you have the H250FDN or FDP the igniter is very hearty. The previous igniters were not. The FD igniter is one short piece while the older more fragile one was a spiral looking one. If the fan is coming one the heater normally tries to light three times before a fault code appears. The fault code will help with determining the problem. Many times it is plugged orifices or burners. Let the heater try lighting three times and look for the fault code.