Heater service light was on. Opening it up and water dripping out of this white piece. Any ideas?
Heater leaking inside
- Thread starter jgjh151
- Start date
You may have a bad heat exchanger and it's leaking into the chamber. To test for this remove the bottom left bolt on the inlet/outlet manifold. If water comes out you at minimum need a new heat exchanger if not a new heater.
If you have a heater bypass then it's simple. Your media file doesn't show a heater so new pictures of the equipment pad are needed for further guidance.
Your heat exchanger is gone and allowing the water to fill the combustion chamber and come out the fan.Heater service light was on. Opening it up and water dripping out of this white piece. Any ideas?
You can plumb the inlet and outlet of the heater together to bypass the unit.
If damage to the rest of the heater is minimal you can replace the heat exchanger, but a new heater is better.
There's enough corrosion on the gas valve to make that suspect of failure in the future and may not be safe to continue to use.
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,664
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
sktn77a
Gold Supporter
No, more like 15 years but if they've been exposed to high chlorine levels then the copper heat exchanger might corrode away after only 5.
- May 3, 2014
- 62,732
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Low pH damages heaters. Chlorine, within reason, is not an issue.
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,664
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
and having 200ppm or more calcium in the water. The calcium protects the heat exchanger as long as low pH does not strip it away.
The OP has a vinyl pool that may have insufficient CH.
Case in point client with a raypak 400k btu had their roll out blow last year like November time when all other pools were already closed but they use and close last minute so the heater set them off and closed 2 weeks earlier then they wanted to but I wasn't working on the heater at that point in time. The short: they also open earlier then any other clients so now it's decision time , new heater or repair. This is season 10 or 11 and I make a visit to assess and knew if the roll out blew the burner tray is most likely a key issue. We'll the burner tray was completely shot and fell apart and a new heater is pricey so maybe we don't need it. I shopped the burner tray and was able to purchase it with a new valve and all for $1400 and decided to make my decision on one last item which was, what does the copper in the heat exchanger look like. I've only been on this client for the last 7 years so who knew what the previous damage is, was or isn't. So I made a decision to remove the manifold and visually look as best as I can and to my surprise it looked almost like it was 1 year old without any green or disintegration of any to the copper tube ends. Along with the burner tray I ordered a new manifold gasket and connection O rings and did the following. I assembled back the manifold and ran it for 2 weeks making sure the heat exchanger wasn't leaking and then completed the burner tray repair. This just proves good chemistry goes a long way to preserve the equipment. Yes years of foliage needed also to be cleaned out which contributed to its demise. So to say a heaters life is 5 years is all bull feathers.
Saw one last less than 6 months because a tab feeder was reinstalled and the pH was allowed to drop so low.
Just had the same exact thing happen to my Sta-rite (same insides) heat exchanger is gone. New heat exchanger are not cheap but replacement is doable. Few videos on youtube. I found same unit on marketplace and just swapped it out. Used my busted heater for donor parts to get the new one going.
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