RayPak 406A Problems - Would Love Some Help

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 no information about this unit but hopefully somebody will. Just wanted to stop by and say hello and welcome you to the Pool Forum!

Watermom - should I post this thread elsewhere on the forum rather than the "Getting Started at the Pool Forum" forum? Sure are a lot of smart people connected to this site - I just want to get as many eyeballs on this as possible to get some help.

Actually, you can't post anywhere else in the forum just yet. But, once your registration is complete, it will be moved out into the appropriate section of the forum and you will also be able at that point to post in other sections besides just the "getting started" section.

When does my registration become complete? As you can imagine from the nature of my post, I'm dealing with a time sensitive issue that I need to engage on, and would LOVE to get some impartial opinions on before I do. That's kind of the reason I joined the forum...

I have alerted Ben to your thread to see if he can your registration finished. We've been swamped this week with everyone trying to get their pools perfect by Memorial Day and we are struggling to get everything done as fast as we would like!

I'm move this into the equipment section . . . but I'm not going to try to answer it now. As Watermom told you, we've been absolutely slammed, and everyone who's knowledgeable is doing as much as they can. Maybe someone will answer helpfully. If not, bump this in a couple of weeks, and I'll try to take a look, but realistically, it maybe after July 4th before we can start looking at issues for the fall season.

Ok PoolDoc. This will be over and done by then. Obviously, need to get on this as soon as possible if I have any shot at getting manufacturer or builder to take accountability.

Thanks anyway - was hoping for some good advice from people who seem like they know what's going on...

As I've explained repeatedly this year, the move to "electronic codes" to make trouble shooting 'easier' . . . doesn't. The pool industry does not have master mechanic manuals (like you get for autos) that explain EVERY code, and how to respond.

Instead, most of the codes are unexplained in any source I've been able to find. So my moderate knowledge of gas fired pool heaters is useless since I've never worked on a RayPak 406a -- I'd need product specific service info I don't have, and don't seems to have access to.

There are a LOT of people here who know "what's going on" with pools, but very few of them have a RayPak 406a -- and to be a little blunt, most of us don't waste our time reading through long posts, once we hit the reference to electronic "codes" -- we already know enough about what's going on, to know that it's not likely that we can help.

So, we move on to someone else, who we can help.

Thanks for being blunt.

Now let me be blunt. The problem I described - with as much detail as I could - has very little to do with the code, and much more to do with a heater - could be ANY brand of heater emmitting ANY error code - that is breaking down well before it is supposed to...displaying rust, breakdown of the firebrick, and an orange flame. Turns out the manifold is cracked, as is the header, and has been spewing water inside the unit - probably has been since it was installed. Working Raypak to work on some sort of settlement so I'm not out $3k.

I've seen the same sort of question and response dozens of times on your forum - posted by people with much less information than I tried to provide, answered by people - you included - with their best guess of what the problem is...and in none of those case did it seem like the people who responded knew the exact unit and product in order to help. That's why I posted.

If you need certain things from your forum community - particularly new members in need of some help - then you should say so. Didn't see anythig in your tips for new users about keeping posts to xx words or less, or leaving codes out of it, etc - in fact it says several times to provide as much detail and background as possible. That's what I did.. Raypak isn't exactly a fly-by-night brand, and there seem to be lots of 406a's out there - that's why I thought somebody could help.

Sorry to have bothered you.

I'm sorry, too.

We can't do everything, and we have to focus on what we can do best. You were asking a heater question, on the busiest weekend of the year, and expecting a prompt and competent answer. There are, at best, 2 or 3 people here who MIGHT be able to answer that question well, and I'm not one of them.

Obviously, you're a dissatisfied customer. I'm sorry you didn't get what you felt like you deserved.

The best I can do for you is return 100% of what you paid -- all $0.00 -- and close your account.

Sincerely,

Ben Powell