I have a kenmore ''power miser 9 '' gas water heater. my basement hadabout 2-3 inches of standing water on the floor from snow melting ect.now my pilot light wouldnt stay on. so i bought a new ''thermocoupleunit and installed it,now the pilot will stay on but when i turn thethermostat knob on and to desired setting it starts up for about 3seconds then goes out ,same with pilot light. what could be going on?the only other things i havent checked is,the sediment trap on the gasline,the burner orifice and the gas control valve,which i dont know howto check that.any ideas? my vent screen is clear.
thank you for your time
wally
This is a major problem with Kenmore power miser 6, 9, and 12's - we purchased a Power Miser 6 in Nov. 2006 and have had 5 service calls in two years - we are on our 6th call now - Go to http://baheyeldin.com/technology-in-society/mistaken-identity-help-with-kenmore-water-heater.html or Complaintsboard.com and you will see multiple complaints on these models. We had Sears out days after we purchased the water heater, and had parts replaced, then more problems in April 2007 - It worked ok until Nov, 2008 and now it has gone out 3 times. We were told it is lint collecting on the screen that sits under the burner (difficult to get to) - we made a vacume attachment out of PCV pipe (like the one the repairman had) and vacumed the screen when the pilot light wouldn't stay lit - that is what they told us was the problem - but this time, the vacuming isn't working - Ash also builds up on the pilot light burner which has to be removed - you can't replace the thermal coupler without replacing the entire burner unit in this model - In short, if you can get your money back and buy a more reliable model, do it! Sears sold us a maintenance agreement after they had come out 3 times ($290), and still we go for 2-5 days without hot water waiting for them to come out and not fix our water heater. They also told us we should build a platform elevated off the floor to increase oxygen and decrease dust - funny our last model was still working at over 10 years and never had an issue in the same location! Sears installed the water heater, and should have installed it on a platform if that was what was needed. Also, there was no warning about having to vacume the screen (UNDER the heater - very difficult) - when we purchased this model or we wouldn't have bought it - Kenmore water heater repair line now tells you to try scrubbing the screen - but who wants to do this every month??? I can't tell you how inconvenient this has been - Looks like there was a class action suit against LOWE's which included the AO Smith water heaters (which is who built the power miser heaters) - no class action suit yet against Kenmore - This has been a nightmare and at the websites I listed, you will see many more such complaints, and some creative solutions...but I doubt any will work for long. Good luck.
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