polaris

[jacob-k]

went on a call last night for a no hot water, got there and its a polaris. board was replaced not that long ago, ignitor wouldnt fire. disconnected it from the board and was able to pull 120ohms from it. called another tech to get an idea of where to go from there and was told board is no good. is there any other way to confirm board is bad and its not something else. Im going back to this job later today, sitting here thinking about it, the board has to be giving the ignitor power, so I shouldnt get voltage from the board if its bad right? would it be from both terminals? and does anyone know if its just 120 or should it be a different voltage?

[kayHVAC]

It should be 120. Were there any error codes?

[jacob-k]

thanks for replying, just got back from the job. my first time looking at one of these, but I spent some time with it as the homeowner wasnt in a rush like last night. your right it did have 120 on the board so I knew it had to be something else. and then I noticed there was no flue, they took it striaght into the wall and had a dryer butted up against it so you cant see it without crawling up on the drying looking around back. so now I seen this thing is very simular to a furnace and the inducer wasnt working. checked inducer terminal on board got no power, connected it to hot and WH cycled on. board is indeed bad however first diagnostic was wrong. thanks for the help though appreciate it. interestingly enough there was no codes

[larnot]

Was there a call 'to' the board?

[hurtinhvac]

Wondering aloud why the board would energize the ignitor if the inducer wasn't closing the pressure switch, however that assumes induced water heaters even have a pressure switch and share the same sequence of ops as an induced furnace.

[larnot]

Yeh, to be honest, the last time i looked at a Polaris it was a submarine.

[jacob-k]

there was no call to the board, no trouble codes at all. when i got there it had a light that confirmed power to the unit. when you turn the knob to on, or temperature up, the ignition (yellow)light came on, after a minute or so the light above that(green) would flash on and then off(that light was an indicator that the burners where on)....or so i assume as I didnt have an operation manual and i havent seen one before....HO wanted to know about changing it out for a tankless, as I looked at it I realized it had an extra copper line going into it that said something like heater return, so I decided to look in the attic to find out what might be going on. HO said to look at her unit as the last guy was saying there was water going to it, sure enough WH runs through the heat exchanger. the coil and furnace are all one unit, R22, in a space there is NO WAY to get it out or a new one in. where talking about a house that has 4 1/2 baths, two kitchens, 3600SqFt and its got a 5ton system stuffed in a tiny attic space. I guess it was 3000SqFt and they added on and tied into the exsisting duct work. the pan is full of white residue from stagnate water, probably from coil pan or primary is clogged. I feel sorry for these people when they have to change this unit. not only is it gonna be a nightmare to get the unit out, nothing else is gonna fit in the little space there is, there gonna have to keep the same type of setup. I sure hope the 410 coil on the new one isnt bigger. what a mess.

[hvacrmedic]

thanks for replying, just got back from the job. my first time looking at one of these, but I spent some time with it as the homeowner wasnt in a rush like last night. your right it did have 120 on the board so I knew it had to be something else. and then I noticed there was no flue, they took it striaght into the wall and had a dryer butted up against it so you cant see it without crawling up on the drying looking around back. so now I seen this thing is very simular to a furnace and the inducer wasnt working. checked inducer terminal on board got no power, connected it to hot and WH cycled on. board is indeed bad however first diagnostic was wrong. thanks for the help though appreciate it. interestingly enough there was no codes

You really should download the manual before working on this water heater. I haven't seen anything in your posts that leads me to the conclusion that the board is bad. It could be, but you haven't proved it yet. There are some other things that need to be tested first.

[jacob-k]

good idea...http://www.americanwaterheater.com/s...-March2000.pdf when i go back friday to change out board ill check for 24vac at TH on ignition control board....thanks medic.

[hurtinhvac]

Interesting. It checks to see that PS is open upon start up, like any other induced system, then closed after inducer (blower) is energized. Then it turns off the blower and energizes the HSI and checks again to see that the PS responds accordingly. Then it turns the blower back on for 3 seconds while energizing the gas vavle for the same period and waits for a 1 second flame prove - and ignores the PS for 5 seconds before checking for it to be closed again.

Shiver me timbers - be careful with this one!