James Bojan
Member
I posted here a week or two ago with problems with my hot water heater. I have tried a few things and have more information. I'm more confused now then I was a week ago. This is a Navien NPE-240A, about 4 years old, on city water.
This all started suddenly when any single faucet (except the high volume master bath) would only give luke warm water. Looking at the info on the hot water heater, it was only registering about 1.2 gpm, with an outlet temp of around 100 deg F (the water heater was set at 125 deg F). Turning on two faucets would give piping hot water with flow over 2 gpm, and outlet temp at 125 deg F.
My first fix was to pull and clean the filters. They looked clean. I cleaned and replaced them. Then water was leaking inside the unit. I pulled the cover off to find the pump air separator on the recirc pump spraying water. It was pretty scaled up. I dismantled it, cleaned it in vinegar, and reassembled. All worked fine, except no change in the hot water at lower flow.
My next trial was to de-scale the unit. I ran cleaning vinegar through the system for 30 minutes. I thought it might have helped a little, as I did get hot water from a single faucet sometimes, but not consistently.
So I ordered a replacement flow sensor, and received that tonight. I put it in, and the water ran straight through the unit and out the condensate drain. While the new flow sensor was in, my flow and temperature fluctuated all over the place. Water was running out of the condensate drain like an open faucet. I put the old flow sensor back in and am back to square one.
Any other ideas at this point?
This all started suddenly when any single faucet (except the high volume master bath) would only give luke warm water. Looking at the info on the hot water heater, it was only registering about 1.2 gpm, with an outlet temp of around 100 deg F (the water heater was set at 125 deg F). Turning on two faucets would give piping hot water with flow over 2 gpm, and outlet temp at 125 deg F.
My first fix was to pull and clean the filters. They looked clean. I cleaned and replaced them. Then water was leaking inside the unit. I pulled the cover off to find the pump air separator on the recirc pump spraying water. It was pretty scaled up. I dismantled it, cleaned it in vinegar, and reassembled. All worked fine, except no change in the hot water at lower flow.
My next trial was to de-scale the unit. I ran cleaning vinegar through the system for 30 minutes. I thought it might have helped a little, as I did get hot water from a single faucet sometimes, but not consistently.
So I ordered a replacement flow sensor, and received that tonight. I put it in, and the water ran straight through the unit and out the condensate drain. While the new flow sensor was in, my flow and temperature fluctuated all over the place. Water was running out of the condensate drain like an open faucet. I put the old flow sensor back in and am back to square one.
Any other ideas at this point?
