The last two days have been challenging. We ran down to Livingston, TX to meet Rudy, our Aqua-hot service man, a very pleasant gentleman. We both thought my new control box was bad. He checked our unit over, replaced the nozzle, seems there is an upgraded nozzle since I installed ours. He tried to start it to no avail, put his test box on and it fired right up. He concurred that my new box was bad so put on a new box and no dice. It would not light. Even tried another new box he had and no luck. With much troubleshooting he determined the flame sensor was good, the ignitor and electrodes were good, the high limit thermostat was good, the fuel solenoid was good, but for some reason there was no current coming out of 3 new control boxes to light the burner????? He conferred with the Aqua-hot guru and he was pretty stumped as well, but suggested bypassing the high limit thermostat, we did and no light!! Getting very frustrating for BOTH of us! We took a break, did some brainstorming, tried several more things, all with no luck until he finally called Aqua-Hot directly, gave them the situation, and they were perplexed as well, said the only thing left was to replace the control board, the circuit board brains of the system, and boom.....it lit!! With great relief of finally fixing the problem I got the bad news that the control box wasn't bad after all, so $800 down the drain, as Roger Berke would not take it back. Just to be perfectly honest it was made clear to me that the control box was a nonreturnable item. Bottom line, we should have detoured over to see Rudy when we were in Georgetown and had it fixed then. It would have saved me the $800 part. So after 3 1/2 hours of which Rudy did not charge me all of it, I wrote another big check and off we went northbound and ended up in Texarkana after dark, a long, long day, but pleased the Aqua-hot was fixed.
Not so fast! We left the diesel on for our hot water and it was performing super, but it was cold in the morning so I turned on the heat in all 3 zones and...........nothing! No heat, no fans running, no response of any kind. What the hell? I have a service manual for the unit so I went digging, still way too early to call Rudy. I find out that there is a small jumper on the circuit board that has to be set a particular way for the interior heat to work, could it be that? So in the dark at 40 degrees with flashlights, Jan and I go out to pull out the circuit board and check, and absolutely the jumper is not in position! I correct it and boom all the fans come on. Yippee! We go back inside figuring we are done, although when it gets a little later I want to call Rudy and let him know. Except that while eating breakfast we notice that the air coming out of the heating radiators in the front living area is COLD! Now what? It's light now so I want to determine exactly what is happening before I call Rudy, so with Jan inside adjusting the 3 thermostats I monitor what is happening at the control board. Each zone has a set of radiators with fans that are heated by a loop with a circulating pump, and I can readily monitor the system as Jan calls for heat in each one. First the bedroom, Zone #1 and Pump #1, ON, check. Second the bathroom, Zone #2 and Pump #2, check. Finally the living area, Zone #3 and Pump #1, what the heck? Where is Pump #3? No wonder there is no heat, but the fans run, now it's time to call Rudy. He apologizes and apologizes, we were so relieved when the burner lit he didn't do due diligence on the new control board and I was remiss in not checking out the ENTIRE system before we left. He said I had done the right thing with the jumper, but there were 3 other jumpers that needed to be positioned correctly as well. I did that and this time I kept him on the phone until we had operated each zone, cycled the diesel on and off, and made sure the engine preheat loop was working. Then Rudy did a very honorable thing, he said he would send me back $50 to pay me for doing his job with the control board. Everyone makes a mistake now and then, but very few people stand up and take responsibility anymore. Rudy did a great job, was careful and meticulous and very courteous, and even though we had this issue I would recommend his work to anyone, and can be assured he will never let another repair go without a very thorough check again!
So after a 2 hour delay yesterday morning our plans for a 500 mile day vanished so right now we are in Sikeston, MO with about a 250 mile drive today into Louisville. Oh yeah, the Aqua-hot is working like a champ!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment