Suburban sw10pe water heater

[mike7454]

Hopefully someone could give me some insight. I have a suburban sw10pe water heater on my trailer. I just replaced the pilot/thermocooupler assembly. after doing so, the pilot now lights easily and stays lit, however the burner goes out. Mind you that when the burner goes out, the pilot stays lit. So today i replaced the burner and the same thing. Burner goes out but pilot stays lit. The parts/service store has closed for the day so no can do going back to ask them and i want be back to the campground for two weeks. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thank you

[5picker]

Since your SW10PE does not have DSI or an electronic control, just a pilot light, you may want to be sure other gas appliances work normally. Can you light all stove burners on high at once? Does the furnace or the refrigerator work properly using LP?

The burner control assembly has a pilot on/off/light knob and that obviously is working or you wouldn't get the pilot lit. the thermocouple from the pilot sends a capillary signal to open the burner valve. That must be working for the burner to ignite.

How long does the burner stay lit? It doesn't burn all the time, only when heat is called for.

It is possible the temperature control is bad in the control assembly, shutting off the flow of gas prematurely. (assuming the tank hasn't come up to temperature before flame out)

[mike7454]

Thanks so much for the input. Ive googled this to the very end and all any site would tell me was the pilot/thermocoupler was bad. so i called SUBURBAN directly. What they told me was that its a thermostat that will shut itself off and turn itself back on when needed.
One thing i should have mentioned was that i just inherited the trailer and didn't know any of this stuff. Fingers crossed it works good now.

[5picker]

Yes... it has an adjustable thermostat. (front facing adjustment wheel/dial)
When the water heats to the designated temperature, the main burner shuts off but the pilot remains lit so the next time you have used enough water from the tank for it to need heated, the burner kicks back in.

When your camping trip is over and before heading out, you need to extinguish the pilot by turning the pilot knob to off.

Manuals for the SW10PE can be found several places online. I suggest you download one and familiarize yourself with the basics and operations.

BTW... I see these were your 1st two posts. Welcome to the forum and if you have any questions, there are lots of past discussions on many things. Do a search of the forum and if you come up empty, come on back and ask away.

Enjoy!

[wmtire]

One more add. Since this water heater has a gas burner AND an electric heating element......if you have the electric heating element ON (unbeknownst to you), and the element is heating the water too, then the thermostat for the propane mode of heating will not sense the need for heat (as the water is already heated) and thus not close to allow the burner to ignite.


Suburban allows the both modes of heating (propane and electric heating element) to be used at the same time to get the fastest recovery rates.


This thread link below may help explain the electric element mode and the switch for such on the face of the water heater. You just will substitute your pilot light for the DSI (Direct Spark Ignition) operation in the thread. The electric element works the same.


https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...ore-36197.html


This should be a pic of your water heater model and I placed an arrow where the semi-hidden switch for the electric heating element is.