My wall heater repair!

 Well, as they say, if it ain't one thing it's another!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I was having some friends over for dinner. I went to light my pilot light on my wall heater and it wasn't getting any gas. I shut the pilot off usually in May and turn it back on sometime around the end of November. I can go all that time without needing to heat my house as the temps run from mid 50's to mid 80's for much of the time.

    Having lived in the house for 35 years I knew that it could be my valve and it was obsolete. The next day I did some online kungfu and found a place in Houston, TX which supplied parts for my old heater. https://eastwaysales.com/ . I emailed them and told them all I knew about my dual wall, Dearborn wall heater and asked if there was a plug and play replacement control valve. They said probably and asked for pictures. Which I sent and their reply was I needed such and such a model. By now it was late Wed before Thanksgiving.

    I knew it was useless to try to order before Friday and maybe Monday depending on their holiday schedule. 

    I called Friday and talked to Mike, ordered the replacement model in propane. And waited. It was cold Inside my house got down to 47F one morning and I opened the doors for warmth during the day brining it up to 54-55F. When you are the warmest thing in the room it gets cold! I huddled in my 0° sleeping bag.

 The new valve took it's time getting here on Dec 4th, 6 days.....

   First think I noticed was this had only 1 outlet for pilot lights, my old one has 2.

    An email to Mike about it and a recommendation to put in a 1/4" compression tee in the single pilot line.

    In the mean time I pulled the heater apart and began the process of cleaning burners and found that my main pilot to the thermocouple was plugged. That was why it would not light.

    I took that and the old and new valves to a local supplier some 15 miles away. APED , down in Santa Cruz(no website). I explained my issue and  asked for a new pilot light, The guy behind the counter said they could clean it for free and it will probably work fine. So he did that with a tiny cleaner like a tip cleaner for welding(none of mine fit). When I left I forgot my extended compression fitting which came with the new valve, on the counter. It was late on Friday at this point and they are closed all weekend.

  So I put it together with just one pilot. I knew it would work, it's just a loud bang when the far burner ignites. When I emailed Mike he again told me to do 2 pilots! There is a tube between the 2 burners and the gas, hopefully, goes between the 2 burners to lite.

     I probably did more dismantling the first time than the second. 

    Put it back together with the single pilot and could not get the tube to valve nut tight enough and had a micro leak. I knew I needed that extended fitting down at APED and a 1/4" compression tee.

    Monday morning I called and yep it was still there. I saddled up my motorcycle and went down and got it and the tee. I should have gotten some new tubing also.

In this pic you can see the extended fitting, above the knob where it says pilot.

Here you can see the old close fit fitting, due to the shape of the valve body the wrench will slide off and you can not get it tight enough.

     So Tuesday I set about pulling the valve/burner assembly and fitting the extended compression fitting and installing the second pilot and tee.

     Here's where I wished I had new tubing. The old stuff wasn't bent so good and had small kinks in it. I used a trick I learned with brake tubing to straighten it out. Drilling a 1/4" hole in a piece of 2x4, cutting off the old compression fitting, I wiggled and jiggled the tubing thru it until it was straight enough and I could work with it.

It was time consuming doing both tubes and reinstalling them on the burners and fettling around, Bending this that way and keeping access to the nuts for the gas supply hose open. The inner pilot has to go into the tunnel tube and the pipe drop down thru a slot in the frame.

   If you have longer tubes you can spiral bend them to make it easier to move and fit. Once the routing was done I tightened the  nuts since it should be easier outside rather than once installed.

   When I was satisfied with the tubing it was back in the house to put it back into the wall. There are only 4 sheet metal screws holding it in. The wires to the thermostat were hooked up and the inlet gas hose firmly attached, mine took 7/8" wrenches.  The tee nuts were 13mm and the extended fitting 7/16" while the pilot fittings were 1/2". All my screws are Phillips.

   With all tight(I thought) I turned the gas supply on and sprayed the fittings with Windex. I could smell gas right away and as soon as the tee fittings started bubbling I shut the gas off and went to tightening. I am always afraid of going too hard and stripping something. Eventually I got no bubbles.

 After having no bubbles, I lit the pilot closest to me and lo and behold the gas from the other pilot popped and it lit up too. With both pilots lit I went to the thermostat which was set at the lowest setting and moved the lever higher to ignite the burners. It wasn't coming on!??? What now?, stormed thru my brain.

     Then I remembered the knob was still on pilot...... I turned the thermostat down to lowest setting again and set the knob to ON. Moving the thermostat up again and the gas flowed and swoosh went the burners.

I HAD HEAT ON DEMAND!!!!

The cover was reinstalled and job Done!

Thanks to Mike at Eastways and the guys at APED!!!