Well, if you’ve been paying attention to my del.icio.us feed, you’ll see I’ve been struggling to repair a water heater that had been partially submerged in the recent flooding:
Tristan recommended replacing the thermocouple as it is a frequent point of failure for gas furnaces and water heaters and is relatively cheap and easy to replace. I eventually got the manifold assembly removed and had access to the thermocouple. A little water spilled out, so I figured that messing with this was probably a good idea. I went to get a replacement thermocouple, but neither of the two hardware stores had a left-hand threaded thermocouple. Eventually, I was directed to a plumbing supply company who told me that only Whirlpool made those parts and that replacements weren’t generally available and that there was a class action lawsuit about this.
I finally went to Lowes and apparently they have some replacement kits (but not for sale, you have to let them know the serial # of the water heater). I didn’t have time to pursue this further, but hopefully I can get the part from Lowes and have hot water.
I also found theremocouple replacement instructions for replacing the thermocouple on Whirlpool’s support site.