This is my first time posting. My hot water heater keeps turning off, and I suspect a recently installed Lock-Top damper to be the culprit. I can't get a chimney sweep to come till Monday to look at it, so I thought maybe someone could help me figure out what's going on. My wife is not happy with cold showers!
I have a house built in 1956 with a 3-sided fireplace, with a firebox opening that measures 30-inches high and 4-feet wide on two of the sides and 3-feet, 8-inches on the front. We have the original wire-mesh curtain around the opening; no glass. The hot water heater is located in the basement below and has a separate flue right next to the chimney flue with the recently installed Lock-Top damper. The hot water heater flue gets a great draw. However, recently during a fire in the fireplace I was getting a reverse direction; it blew out a match. The fire was almost over, just a few embers, and I closed the Lock-Top damper. I went back down in the basement to check the hot water heater flue and sure enough the draw was back. The next day, I had no fires and never opened the Lock-Top and the hot water heater pilot blew out again. Now, I was really confused. I called the plumber who installed the A.O. Smith unit a few years ago. He checked it all out and everything looked fine. We where getting a really good draw from the flue. He took out a metal liner which extended to the top of the hot water heater to an opening in the concrete block wall surrounding the fireplace in the basement (I presume this connects to a typical flue liner). There was a lot of soot in the liner, not fireplace ash as much as the kind of black particles you find in the water heater; rust from the element.
Anybody have any idea what is going on? Also, I smell an ash smell in the house around the fireplace with the fireplace cleaned of ash and the Lock-Top closed. I thought the Lock-Top was suppose to get rid of this? Any help would be appreciated.
I have a house built in 1956 with a 3-sided fireplace, with a firebox opening that measures 30-inches high and 4-feet wide on two of the sides and 3-feet, 8-inches on the front. We have the original wire-mesh curtain around the opening; no glass. The hot water heater is located in the basement below and has a separate flue right next to the chimney flue with the recently installed Lock-Top damper. The hot water heater flue gets a great draw. However, recently during a fire in the fireplace I was getting a reverse direction; it blew out a match. The fire was almost over, just a few embers, and I closed the Lock-Top damper. I went back down in the basement to check the hot water heater flue and sure enough the draw was back. The next day, I had no fires and never opened the Lock-Top and the hot water heater pilot blew out again. Now, I was really confused. I called the plumber who installed the A.O. Smith unit a few years ago. He checked it all out and everything looked fine. We where getting a really good draw from the flue. He took out a metal liner which extended to the top of the hot water heater to an opening in the concrete block wall surrounding the fireplace in the basement (I presume this connects to a typical flue liner). There was a lot of soot in the liner, not fireplace ash as much as the kind of black particles you find in the water heater; rust from the element.
Anybody have any idea what is going on? Also, I smell an ash smell in the house around the fireplace with the fireplace cleaned of ash and the Lock-Top closed. I thought the Lock-Top was suppose to get rid of this? Any help would be appreciated.
