Water heater soot

[bkahler]

For just the short period of time we had the hot water heater turned on there was a tremendous amount of soot produced. Enough so that there was soot smeared on the side of the MH just above the water heater. Is this normal

Thanks,

Brad

[CanoeStream]

Hi Brad -- That doesn't sound right. There are a manageable number of threads to read if you search on both 'soot furnace' and 'soot water heater.' If that only gets you started, please post back here with further questions.

[Silvertwinkie]

If the unit sat for a while and critters (bugs, spiders, etc) made a home, yes, some initial soot would be normal, but if if were to continue beyond a few minutes, you may need to re-adjust the burner. On our unit, it's as simple as a screw and slide type event on the fuel/air delivery pipe.

[B4WEDI]

I'm with Silvertwinkie on this one....... Maybe crud or a rich burning condition.

I met with the Atwood people this week and went over this very problem.

After making sure nothing that doesn't belong there is removed from your tube and burning chamber, loosen set screw and slide the slotted over-tube right, shutting down the air supply, it will start to sound like a little jet.

Slowly slide left, opening things up till the jet sound diminishes and the flame turns from golden to blue. An even burning blue flame should put things back in order.

If your not sure of yourself, by all means seek professional help.

The soot won't hurt anything in the meantime. Better to run it rich than lean.

[bkahler]

My thinking on this one is that the MH sat for a good while without use, so hopefully it was just crud in the chambers. Brad is headed down to check it out again right now and he will report back on what he finds.

He does a good bit of searching before he posts, but he just realized that he has only been searching the MH forum and not the trailer one as well. He will be expanding his view!

Thanks for all of the assistance!!!

Susan