Raypak 156A propane heater for above ground pool with ioniz, 3 years old.
Recently and fairly suddenly the heater has developed a high pitched whistling while it’s running. I have tried many troubleshooting options and really don’t want to remove the burner tray if I don’t have to. Here’s what I have done so far:
- Flushed the heater with muriatic acid.
- Removed the header and inspected the pipes in the heat exchanger for blockage, found nothing but rust, scrubbed with a wire brush but only the first 4” due to brush length limitations.
- removed the heat exchanger to expose the burner. Scrubbed the burner tray with wire brush. Blew it all out with air.
-checked all propane valves to ensure full pressure was coming in.
The only remaining suggestion I’ve found is to remove the burner tray completely and hose it down. I would really like to avoid this if possible since whenever I fire up the heater in the spring, it takes a looooong time for the propane to fill the system and fire the pilot. So I would like to avoid disconnecting the gas.
Finally, the sound only happens when the burner is running, however, the sound changes when I change the amount of water running through the heater. It is at its loudest when there is low flow and it’s quietest when it is at max water flow.
Often in the past, there is a whistling while the heater first fires up that disappears within a few seconds.
Any advice or input would be much appreciated!
Recently and fairly suddenly the heater has developed a high pitched whistling while it’s running. I have tried many troubleshooting options and really don’t want to remove the burner tray if I don’t have to. Here’s what I have done so far:
- Flushed the heater with muriatic acid.
- Removed the header and inspected the pipes in the heat exchanger for blockage, found nothing but rust, scrubbed with a wire brush but only the first 4” due to brush length limitations.
- removed the heat exchanger to expose the burner. Scrubbed the burner tray with wire brush. Blew it all out with air.
-checked all propane valves to ensure full pressure was coming in.
The only remaining suggestion I’ve found is to remove the burner tray completely and hose it down. I would really like to avoid this if possible since whenever I fire up the heater in the spring, it takes a looooong time for the propane to fill the system and fire the pilot. So I would like to avoid disconnecting the gas.
Finally, the sound only happens when the burner is running, however, the sound changes when I change the amount of water running through the heater. It is at its loudest when there is low flow and it’s quietest when it is at max water flow.
Often in the past, there is a whistling while the heater first fires up that disappears within a few seconds.
Any advice or input would be much appreciated!
