AshburnVA
05-19-2012, 10:52 PM
Hi All. New Here, but I really, really need some help. I'll try to include as much detail as I possibly can - hope it's not too much.
I have a 30k gallon, DE chlorine filtered, in ground swimming pool/spa with a pebble-tec finish that is just under 2 years old, built by Anthony & Sylvan here in Ashburn, VA. It also, as the title suggests, has a RayPak 406A natural 400k BTU gas heater that worked like an absolute champ for the first two seasons we've owned the pool.
This year, we opened in April, and used A&S to do so, as we have each year. No worries. Have been heating the pool on the weekends to swim. About a week or so ago, I noticed the spa would not get any hotter than about 95-97 degrees F, and then later began smoking from the top. I went up to the front panel, and noticed the "HL2 - Service" code on, so I shut the unit down and did a little research. Found out on this forum that this is one of two "High Limit" switches that will kick on off the unit detects an unsafe temp condition. Makes sense. Also found out the the Raypak unit has a 7 year parts, and 2 year service warranty - both of which the unit falls within. So, called A&S to come out and look.
The tech came on Thursday - have had him before and he has not intilled a lot of confidence that he a) knows what he's doing, or b) shoots straight with you about the cause of any issues that he may have found. In any event, he said the unit was covered in soot, and needed to be "desooted", a procedure that would cost between $400-$500. WOW. When my wife asked what the source of the soot was, he said it was some landscaping grass that was touching the unit to the left side. Hmmm - there may have been 6 strands of ornamental grass that were barely touching the vents on the left...no kidding. When she asked what "desooting" included, it amounted to him breaking down the sheet metal casing of the heater in order to spray oven cleaner on the coils the get the soot off. Labor intensive, hence the high cost, so he said.
When he opened the front face of the heater, though, my wife noticed the entire floor of the heater - the sheet metal casing - was rusted pretty badly. So much so that layers of metal were flaking off and it was very, very visible. My wife asked what that was, and the tech said - that's the owners responsibility, mam - you have to keep your unit serviced. It's in your owners handbook! More on that in a minute.
In any event, I'm a DIY'r and did a little research on this forum regarding cleaning and decided to give it a go and save the bucks. I spent the day breaking everything down and getting the unit soot free, using plenty of water to rinse the everything down really well. No worries. Soot came off entirely.
In the process, though, I noticed that there is extensive rust throughout the unit. It's very visible when looking into the top of the unit up by the coils, and on the metal bars that cover them. The frame that holds the insulation box in place has significant flaking, extensive rust as well. The floor, as I said before, is completely rusted, and I'll bet with little effort I could push a screwdriver through the bottom with little problem.
Moving on - I put the unit back together, being very careful not to bend or distort any of the sheet metal, and it all went back together no problem. Fired the unit up - works no problem in pool mode (roughly 80-85 degrees), but once again - in spa mode when the temp got to about 98 degrees, unit began smoking fromt the top and..."HL2 Service". Shut everything down.
Little more research convinced me there was something else going, so I broke the unit down again and started looking. When I laid down in front of the unit and looked up at the burners with a flashlight, I noticed several flat pieces of something - about the size of a playing card - laying across the burners. I carefully used a screwdriver, and was able to pull out about a dozen pieces of insulation that had flaked off from inside the heating box and fallen down on the burners. Most of them were pink and charred. I saved them all, as well as many similar size pieces of flaked, rusted metal that easily came off of almost every metal surface inside the unit.
Put it all back together, and all works fine in pool mode, but spa mode again kicks the HL2 code. No smoke anymore.
Obviously - I'm not going to run the unit, becasue this can't be safe/good for it.
As I said - this unit, and the pool, is less than two years old. At this rate, it won't last another season. We are maniacal about keeping the chemicals - chlorine at around 1.5 & PH at 7.5 - at the right levels. It gets tested twice a week with a multi test kit at home, at minimum, and with a more detailed water sample at a local shop nearby once a month. The chemicals have never been too far out of whack for any lenght of time since we've been owners. We store chemicals about 200ft away in a storage bin - there is absotuly nothing corrosive near this unit.
I'm thinking that either a) there unit was improperly installed, and water has been "misting" or "spraying" on the inside of the unit, or b) there's a leak in the coils, doing the same thing. Either way, the result has been to rust out many metal surfaces in the unit, and cause the insulation in the heater box to flake off and fall onto the burner bars.
A couple of questions:
* Has anyone heard of anything like this before, and are there other threads you can point me to? I looked, but didn't find any quite this bad.
* Would anyone say that this was anything close to normal wear and tear on components like the ones I've described? Can't believe it is.
* Any advice on how - 2 years after they have all of my money - I can try to hold Anthony & Sylvan and/or RayPak accountable to replace the unit and install it correctly? Not feeling this is going to go well, given the dialogue from our Tech-friend from A&S. Incidentally - the ornamental grass that he said was causing the soot? Well, there is no access from that side of the unit to the coils or the inside of the burner box. Even if they did smoke/burn, they would not have been able to create soot inside the heating unit.
Help - please. These units, as I'm sure many of you know, are $2000-$3000 to replace.
I have a 30k gallon, DE chlorine filtered, in ground swimming pool/spa with a pebble-tec finish that is just under 2 years old, built by Anthony & Sylvan here in Ashburn, VA. It also, as the title suggests, has a RayPak 406A natural 400k BTU gas heater that worked like an absolute champ for the first two seasons we've owned the pool.
This year, we opened in April, and used A&S to do so, as we have each year. No worries. Have been heating the pool on the weekends to swim. About a week or so ago, I noticed the spa would not get any hotter than about 95-97 degrees F, and then later began smoking from the top. I went up to the front panel, and noticed the "HL2 - Service" code on, so I shut the unit down and did a little research. Found out on this forum that this is one of two "High Limit" switches that will kick on off the unit detects an unsafe temp condition. Makes sense. Also found out the the Raypak unit has a 7 year parts, and 2 year service warranty - both of which the unit falls within. So, called A&S to come out and look.
The tech came on Thursday - have had him before and he has not intilled a lot of confidence that he a) knows what he's doing, or b) shoots straight with you about the cause of any issues that he may have found. In any event, he said the unit was covered in soot, and needed to be "desooted", a procedure that would cost between $400-$500. WOW. When my wife asked what the source of the soot was, he said it was some landscaping grass that was touching the unit to the left side. Hmmm - there may have been 6 strands of ornamental grass that were barely touching the vents on the left...no kidding. When she asked what "desooting" included, it amounted to him breaking down the sheet metal casing of the heater in order to spray oven cleaner on the coils the get the soot off. Labor intensive, hence the high cost, so he said.
When he opened the front face of the heater, though, my wife noticed the entire floor of the heater - the sheet metal casing - was rusted pretty badly. So much so that layers of metal were flaking off and it was very, very visible. My wife asked what that was, and the tech said - that's the owners responsibility, mam - you have to keep your unit serviced. It's in your owners handbook! More on that in a minute.
In any event, I'm a DIY'r and did a little research on this forum regarding cleaning and decided to give it a go and save the bucks. I spent the day breaking everything down and getting the unit soot free, using plenty of water to rinse the everything down really well. No worries. Soot came off entirely.
In the process, though, I noticed that there is extensive rust throughout the unit. It's very visible when looking into the top of the unit up by the coils, and on the metal bars that cover them. The frame that holds the insulation box in place has significant flaking, extensive rust as well. The floor, as I said before, is completely rusted, and I'll bet with little effort I could push a screwdriver through the bottom with little problem.
Moving on - I put the unit back together, being very careful not to bend or distort any of the sheet metal, and it all went back together no problem. Fired the unit up - works no problem in pool mode (roughly 80-85 degrees), but once again - in spa mode when the temp got to about 98 degrees, unit began smoking fromt the top and..."HL2 Service". Shut everything down.
Little more research convinced me there was something else going, so I broke the unit down again and started looking. When I laid down in front of the unit and looked up at the burners with a flashlight, I noticed several flat pieces of something - about the size of a playing card - laying across the burners. I carefully used a screwdriver, and was able to pull out about a dozen pieces of insulation that had flaked off from inside the heating box and fallen down on the burners. Most of them were pink and charred. I saved them all, as well as many similar size pieces of flaked, rusted metal that easily came off of almost every metal surface inside the unit.
Put it all back together, and all works fine in pool mode, but spa mode again kicks the HL2 code. No smoke anymore.
Obviously - I'm not going to run the unit, becasue this can't be safe/good for it.
As I said - this unit, and the pool, is less than two years old. At this rate, it won't last another season. We are maniacal about keeping the chemicals - chlorine at around 1.5 & PH at 7.5 - at the right levels. It gets tested twice a week with a multi test kit at home, at minimum, and with a more detailed water sample at a local shop nearby once a month. The chemicals have never been too far out of whack for any lenght of time since we've been owners. We store chemicals about 200ft away in a storage bin - there is absotuly nothing corrosive near this unit.
I'm thinking that either a) there unit was improperly installed, and water has been "misting" or "spraying" on the inside of the unit, or b) there's a leak in the coils, doing the same thing. Either way, the result has been to rust out many metal surfaces in the unit, and cause the insulation in the heater box to flake off and fall onto the burner bars.
A couple of questions:
* Has anyone heard of anything like this before, and are there other threads you can point me to? I looked, but didn't find any quite this bad.
* Would anyone say that this was anything close to normal wear and tear on components like the ones I've described? Can't believe it is.
* Any advice on how - 2 years after they have all of my money - I can try to hold Anthony & Sylvan and/or RayPak accountable to replace the unit and install it correctly? Not feeling this is going to go well, given the dialogue from our Tech-friend from A&S. Incidentally - the ornamental grass that he said was causing the soot? Well, there is no access from that side of the unit to the coils or the inside of the burner box. Even if they did smoke/burn, they would not have been able to create soot inside the heating unit.
Help - please. These units, as I'm sure many of you know, are $2000-$3000 to replace.