This unit was installed by myself about 5 years ago. Please be aware that I am NOT a plumber, electrician or even a handy man. I am a woman with with fair to good mechanical sense and desperate enough to tackle most jobs by myself first. (Yeah, yeah...keep the warnings and BS to yourselves..."explosions, electrocutions, death by carbon monoxide, wheels falling off a high speed, losing a finger, hand, foot, being gored by the bull"...just re-read "desperate".) An initial question to the Whirlpool service department resulted in them sending a new thermocouple (almost automatically-was that my first hint?) it turned out that I didn't need and the unit has worked fine until now. Reducing 2 hours of running back and forth from my exterior utility room to my kitchen (also known as troubleshooting) resulted in the following observations: The pilot was re-lit and burned a clean blue indefinitely (with the control set on "pilot"). The pilot remained lit and of same size and color with all other appliance burners turned on (including a gas dryer on the immediate other side of the wall.) The burner ignited and burned a little yellow on first try (and with each first try after a waiting period) but a clean blue with each second and third tries. The burner fires strongly for about 2 minutes. Then a loud click from the valve and the burner goes out, taking the pilot light with it. It does not matter how high I set the thermostat. (Water in tank had cooled to lower than room temp by then.) There is no smell of gas, no carbon marks visible, nothing impeding air flow. I have not, as of yet, crawled under the house with the vampires and softball-sized black widows, (YES, there are such things as those!) but have resigned myself to do so to check connections. Wouldn't you know that the heater is in the lowest, creepiest, farthest and darkest corner of this little area of hell? I have the thermocouple they sent me...somewhere. Does the information provided lead you to think of one cause more than another? Have I missed any troubleshooting steps I should take? (If it is vampire-land, I will need some vodka first...and maybe a wooden stake.)
It does sound to me like the thermocouple (TC) is the problem. The TC has to be hot before it will allow the gas valve to remain open. I think what is happening is this...The pilot by itself does keep the TC just barely hot enough to keep the valve open, but when the burner kicks in, it is naturally creating a larger draft of air to feed the burner. That draft is just enough to cool the TC by a degree or two, so it kicks the valve off. You might be able to alter the position of the TC in the pilot flame so that it stays hotter. If that doesn't work, you need to replace it. Nice colorful description! Good luck!
SOURCE: Natural gas hot water heater not stying lit
Probably a bad solenoid in the gas valve. Higher voltage of a new thermocouple keeps it open longer but it still fails over a period of time. Look into a new gas valve for the water heater.
SOURCE: The pilot light & will stay lit. untill the burner cycles on/off
MAKE SURE THE BURNER TUBE AND ORIFICES ARE CLEAN. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE PROPER LP PRESSURE.
SOURCE: Enviro temp hot water heater. 1 week ago pilot
Remove your entire pilot assembly from the heater and gas valve. Remove the aluminum gas line that feeds the pilot assembly. There is a small orifice inside the pilot assembly that may or may not fall out when you take the line off. If it does not fall out remove it and be sure that the very small holes in the top of it are clear. It sounds to me like even though the flame is blue and in contact with the thermo-couple, when the main flame turns off it causes the pilot flame to wave away from the thermo-couple thus shutting it down due to a weak pilot. I have run into this several times and should do the trick.
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