The heater is 10 years old. I've had relatively good luck with it - only had to replace the hi limit switches and brass plugs in the last 10 years, even with my admittedly poor maintenance of the water chemistry.
Recently, the heater would not light up and I figured it was the ignitor. I took out the burner tray and found the entire far end support bracket was completely rusted. The ignitor was laying on the bottom of the cabinet since the bracket holding it in place had completely disintegrated. The rough edges of the rusted metal had also cut through the ignitor wires.
I am not sure if it is worthwhile to fix this. I can only seem to find a replacement burner tray for about $900 - I can't find just the bracket that is rusted. Plus, I am wondering if anything in the control could have been damaged by the fault current when the ignitor wire shorted to the burner support bracket. On top of that, I noticed that the insulation on the far side of the cabinet is wet - wondering if I have a leak in the heat exchanger also. So many unknowns and the age of the heater are making me nervous about dumping any money into it.
So, I have two questions:
1) what recommendation would anyone have on a replacement unit? Brand? Model?
2) if I did try to rig up a way to mount the ignitor back on the rusted bracket just to see if it will light up, which way does it mount? Towards the outside, or towards the burners? The Jandy part breakdown is not clear on this.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
George
Recently, the heater would not light up and I figured it was the ignitor. I took out the burner tray and found the entire far end support bracket was completely rusted. The ignitor was laying on the bottom of the cabinet since the bracket holding it in place had completely disintegrated. The rough edges of the rusted metal had also cut through the ignitor wires.
I am not sure if it is worthwhile to fix this. I can only seem to find a replacement burner tray for about $900 - I can't find just the bracket that is rusted. Plus, I am wondering if anything in the control could have been damaged by the fault current when the ignitor wire shorted to the burner support bracket. On top of that, I noticed that the insulation on the far side of the cabinet is wet - wondering if I have a leak in the heat exchanger also. So many unknowns and the age of the heater are making me nervous about dumping any money into it.
So, I have two questions:
1) what recommendation would anyone have on a replacement unit? Brand? Model?
2) if I did try to rig up a way to mount the ignitor back on the rusted bracket just to see if it will light up, which way does it mount? Towards the outside, or towards the burners? The Jandy part breakdown is not clear on this.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
George