spookychief
New Member
Hello! I work in facility maintenance and I have tons of these A.O Smith nightmares but 2 in particular that are really causing me trouble as of late. Both units are HE models BTX 100 120 and both seem to get waterlogged and cause these ignition failures I've been getting. They are both in the same building btw. What I've found as a temporary solution is to use a shop vac so it blows air out and put the hose against the blower motor inlet to push the water out of the system. Then everything is fine for a couple of months.
So I've called in a heating and air specialist to take a look at both of these HW heaters and he seems to believe that there is an internal leak causing the system to fill with water then causing the ignition fails. I'm unsure of that since both of these tanks are relatively new at least within the last 10 years plus in my mind if there was an internal leak then I would think that they would fail a lot more often then every couple of months. Both pull in air from outside and also vent air to the outside as well.
I'll also add that I've noticed that when I leave the air inlet pipe disconnected from the motor then failure rates go down significantly...so I guess after all that background I'm wondering if both of these units have internal leaks at the same exact time or could it be that the blowers are getting weak and unable to evacuate the water that's collecting in the tank? Any help is appreciated Thanks!
So I've called in a heating and air specialist to take a look at both of these HW heaters and he seems to believe that there is an internal leak causing the system to fill with water then causing the ignition fails. I'm unsure of that since both of these tanks are relatively new at least within the last 10 years plus in my mind if there was an internal leak then I would think that they would fail a lot more often then every couple of months. Both pull in air from outside and also vent air to the outside as well.
I'll also add that I've noticed that when I leave the air inlet pipe disconnected from the motor then failure rates go down significantly...so I guess after all that background I'm wondering if both of these units have internal leaks at the same exact time or could it be that the blowers are getting weak and unable to evacuate the water that's collecting in the tank? Any help is appreciated Thanks!
