It seems to happen after you plan a pool or spa party, the heater just wont turn on. It doesn't matter if its a Raypak or Jandy heater spyders can cause all kinds of issues. How can a little spyder keep your heater from firing up. Well they like dark tight places and the smell that is put in gas. Natural gas is a by product of oil and extracted from oil fields, also there are natural gas fields. In the early 1900 century this gas was burned off in the oil fields since it would be costly to pipe it into storage or into local towns. Intresting enough is that natural gas has no odor and an odorant is added for saftey reasons. This odorant has been compared to the smell of rotten eggs. Its been said that spyders are attracted to this odor and they build there nests inside the burners and orfices and venturis where this gas has been. The spyders will build a web and this web blocks the flow of air and gas into the main burner. I would have to say appooximatly 40% of the heaters I have fixed were a result of a spyder webs.
Older millivolt heaters have a standing pilot, this pilot produces the electricy to operate the heater. Many times spyders will get inside the pilot building a nest causing the flame to burn yellow and not produce a good strong blue flame. When the flame is burning yellow, there is not enough electricy to run the heater. In newer units like a Jandy LX 400 they use a Hot Surface Ignitor. What happens in theses units the web is built inside the burner and blocks the flow of gas. The units fires up and shuts down in less than 5 seconds.
You can tell if you have spyder problems, by taking off the front door and looking for spyder webs in the front corners or anywhere in the compartment.
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