Hot water heater not firing up

[beandoggy]

Hi- We have a 2012 amerilite and the hot water heater fired up on our first trip out this year, but immediately turned off and has not fired up since. All connections have been checked and rechecked. Any advice as to why this is happening?
Thanks
Debi

[atreis]

Is it damp, or was it damp at the time? I had one on my old trailer (not a Gulfstream) that would do that after rain, but then work fine after drying. I eventually just sprayed hairspray over the circuit board to seal whatever tiny crack it had, and all worked fine after that.

Anyway - there are four basic things that could be going wrong: 1. The control board is malfunctioning and not activating the gas, ignitor and so forth. 2. Gas gets turned on, but the ignitor isn't working. 3. The gas electrically controlled gas valve isn't working. 4. The heater is working fine, but gas isn't flowing.

There's another possibility that's a slight variation, but it has different behvaior: If the heater ignites, but then almost immediately goes back out again, the spark sense from the ignitor back to the control board isn't working properly (so that the control board thinks the gas hasn't lit, and turns it back off to prevent gas accumulation).

Checking the control board: Check to see if the gas valve is receiving voltage when you turn on the heater. Check if you can hear the sparker. If there's no voltage at the valve and you don't hear anything there's a good chance the control board is bad.

Checking the ignitor: If the gas valve is receiving voltage but there's no audible sparking, the sparker isn't working. This could either be a fault in the control board or the ignitor. Replacing the ignitor is usually very inexpensive, while the control board is expensive, so start with the ignitor. :)

Checking the gas valve, or a gas problem: If there's voltage at the valve, and you can hear the sparker, but no gas is flowing the valve could be bad (this is expensive and rare). Make sure other gas-powered appliances work, especially the one closest to the water heater. If they're working, then gas is flowing, but the valve isn't working.

The most common problem: Sparker and/or spark-sense goes bad. This is followed by bad control boards. (If it's the control board, Dinosaur brand are better than OEM.)

Good luck!

[beandoggy]

Thank you very much for your reply and advice. We'll check it out and report back our findings!
Have a great day
Deb