Ray Pak gas heater headaches

[Senior Roberto]

Hello
Hopefully someone out there can shed some light on my problem. We bought a house in Puerto Vallarta that has a Raypak gas. Pool heater that is about 4 years old. We have been having ongoing issues with getting it to fire up, stay on, thermostat issues etc.
after following recommendations to swap out the fuel line for a larger one, replace the pilot,thermocouple and analog thermostat with a similar one and clean the electrical connections plus who knows what else it will only turn on when the circulation pump goes on about half the time. Once it is on, the new thermostat is now working.
now it is being recommended to me to swap it out for an electric heatpump. We have a salt water cell that we had installed about a year and a half ago.
after spending around $2000 USD on repairs I really don’t want to invest another $6000-8000 on a new system.
I am currently getting the heater to go on by turning the pump timer on and of about 3-4 times. By the way it turned on by itself this morning....argh!!!
Thoughts?

 

[kimkats]

Hi and welcome to TFP. I am sorry to be meeting this way though Here is a bump to get more eyes on your problem.

 

[Senior Roberto]

Thank you. Have not received any replies yet.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

One obvious question would be - is the filter clean such that you are getting good water flow through your plumbing (strong water pressure at your returns) AND, by extension, is the pressure switch on the header manifold of the heater working properly?

The pressure switch is what the heater uses to know if water is flowing into the heater at the proper rate. If the filter is dirty and water flow is low then the pressure switch won’t close and the heater will not turn on. The pressure switch is wired directly in series with the incoming electrical power so if the switch fails to close, then the system gets no power. Alternatively the pressure switch could have gone bad and isn’t working properly. Repeatedly turning your pool pump on and off to get the heater to turn on may be a sign that the pressure switch is bad.

The Raypak Heater manual has an entire troubleshooting section on what to check. If you are handy, you can look it up online and go through the checklist.

 

[mknauss]

RayPak Heaters - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

See if this article provides any guidance.

 

[Futuresvt]

What is your flame strength as displayed in the service menu? Is this a new problem or has it been on going? Was the burned tray checked and all looks good?