New water heater won't light..

Do you hear the ignition source going off? The clicking noise?

Yes I hear the click and I can see the little spark through the viewing window.....

how long have you had the pilot depressed?. if the gas line was taken apart it has air in it that needs to be purged before it will light. sometimes you just need to hold the pilot depressed for a longer time. did you try lighting the pilot with a grill lighter to see if there IS enough gas at the pilot?

DannyT said:

how long have you had the pilot depressed?. if the gas line was taken apart it has air in it that needs to be purged before it will light. sometimes you just need to hold the pilot depressed for a longer time. did you try lighting the pilot with a grill lighter to see if there IS enough gas at the pilot?

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Well per instructions ive held down the gas button at the most 90 seconds while I click on the igniter.. I'm afraid to do more than 90 seconds since I dont want the thing to blow up and ruin my pretty face.. :laughing: I've done this about 5 times now and the status light won't come on at all..

There is gas coming through because I hear it and I kinda loosen up the gas line and was able to smell a it.. Plus my water heater and furnace kind of share the same gas line and my furnace fires up fine.. I was thinking of lighting it with the torch light but per instruction it said not to try it.. I've never messed with a water heater before.. 5 days ago I didn't know squat about them.. I mostly work on cars but have never messed around home appliances...

Also I wanted to add that during the installation there was some leakage and water got on the controls.. It wasn't underwater but there was some splash of water.. Also I live in utah and we've been getting a lot of snow.. The closet where the water heater is kinda cold due to the vents.. I was reading that it takes a little bit of time for the thermacouple to warm up.. So i dont know if that has something to do with it as well..

Sounds like you don't have the air purged out of it yet. Sometimes these can take a while. The orfice on the pilot is about twice the diameter of a human hair so it takes a while to get the air out.

danpik said:

Sounds like you don't have the air purged out of it yet. Sometimes these can take a while. The orfice on the pilot is about twice the diameter of a human hair so it takes a while to get the air out.

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Do you recommend to just keep pressing the pilot and letting gas and air keep coming out then?? Or is there a faster way to get purge the air out??

Just wanted to give an update.. The technician ended up coming in today since I couldn't fix it.. He had trouble getting started as well.. He checked everything out and it everything seemed to be working fine.. Gas was there and the vents were fine.. He ended up widening the spark by putting the igniter apart from the metal and that ended up lighting it up.. So looks like it was a manufacturers mistake..