Water Heaters - Gas Water Heater-No Hot Water

This evening I noticed we had no hot water, so I checked the pilot and it was still burning and the bruner was working properly, just no hot water. It would get slightly warm but thats about it.
I posted on another forum I am on (totally unrelated) and they said it might be a faulty thermocouple. Everything I have read says the pilot will not work if its faulty, but could this be the problem anyway?
I have shut of the gas dial on the actual tank and the gas line as well just incase I need to remove it or do anything else to it so I won't catch myself on fire.
Any suggestiosn would be great as I will be doing this myself (bf is not to mechanically inclined) :rolleyes:

well, first of all if the thermocouple was bad the pilot would not stay lit. It is usually the first thing to check (inexpensive).

Approx. how old is the water heater? If fairly new there are new sensors added to water heaters that could be the problem. If it is a few years old I would say the gas control valve is either faulty or for some reason (scale buildup in the tank) the sensing bulb for the gas control is not sensing. Either way you will need to drain the tank and disconnect all piping to the control to replace the gas valve. Or to clean off the sensor. Another place to go is A O Smith or state .com and look at the troubleshooting books they have for more Ideas I haven't thought of.


Good luck

This evening I noticed we had no hot water, so I checked the pilot and it was still burning and the bruner was working properly, just no hot water.
If the burner was on like you say . Id go with like said how old is it????? Build up of lime and calcium on the vent tube??
Could be the cold water dip stick is off in the tank.;)

I would say the heater is about 6 yrs old or so. it was here when we moved in.
How would I check the vent tube and where is it at?
And where is the gas valve?

Ok, I turned the gas back on and lit the pilot/burner again and we have warm water BUT I turned the temp dial up more and the flames aren't getting any higher like they normally would. :wall:

This afternnoon I checked and the pilot is lit but the burner will no longer light...
What do I need to do?

hooligan, turning the temp dial up wouldn't make the flames higher that I know of, all it does is keep them on longer until the water reaches the set temp.

Give it some time, the experts probably have real jobs, they'll be back with some help.

OK, for starters, Let me say I am sorry for misreading your first post.

After Ed Imeduc tipped me off in his post that I did indeed read it wrong I re-evaluated the situation and have come up with new thoughts.

The reason the burner did not fire this time could be because the water heater is up to temp.
You have described to us that your water is warm but not hot. Well once again I would have to agree with Ed Imeduc and say something has happened to your "DIP TUBE". The dip tube is a plastic tube that is inserted into the cold side of your water heater so it can send the cold water to the bottom of the tank, and you will pull the hot water off the top. If the dip tube breaks off you will feed the top of the tank with hot water and since you are drawing the hot off the top, Presto, you get no hot water.
Don't forget, the burner is at the bottom, so if the cold water doesn't start at the bottom you will never get a chance to get it hot.

Run the how water faucets some more to see if the burner starts up again, or draw water off the bottom of the tank so you will get more cold water closer to the control.

Unfortunately if it is the dip tube, you will need to unpipe the cold side to find thin out.

Let me know if you get the burner to fire up. If so I would start unpiping the tank

Good luck, Mark