A short while ago I was crowing about finding a new gas valve for my bus heater. I no sooner finished that up when the gas valve on the wall heater in out "granny flat" failed (or at least so I thought at the time). By the time I finished researching a replacement valve I realized that both the bus and the flat used the same basic valve. Since the flat has a wall thermostat it requires a thermopile to generate the millivolts required to run the thermostat while the bus with a manual temp set uses a thermocouple. Other than that the valves are identical. While I waited for the new valve from e-bay I monkeyed with the heater and after cleaning the pilot tube and getting the scale off the thermopile the heater works just fine.
E-bay came through with a new valve, a new thermopile and a new thermostat. Not wanting all those goodies to go to waste, I tore the heater out of the bus and adapted all the new parts to it. It works great and I don't have to crawl around on the floor to set the temp. Without thinking I shared my success with Wifey who looked at me with that raised eyebrow "Yea sure" look—I swear, it just happened that way even though I really did want to make the change in the bus heater back when I repaired it----.
Things often happen to me in sets of three. Today the thermopile in our 5 year old water heater gave up the ghost. The fixins for that ran $187.50 and I didn't even get any spare parts!
Jack
And I'll bet you were a handful for your parents growing up... ;D
I am also a DIY. How come you couldn't get the parts for your house water heater as cheap as the parts for the bus?
I had the water heater go out in the house, so we took showers in the bus while I put in a new house water heater.
Oh, and what does any of this have anything to do with your parents and when you were growing up???
I screwed up 2 gas valves on a Atwood in 2 days on the van @ 100 bucks ea by not reading,they have a disk inside the valve that pops when the pressure is set to high.lol I got it figured out now 5lbs is is 4.66 psi to much 11 inches of water is not much PSI ???
"Oh, and what does any of this have anything to do with your parents and when you were growing up???"
pp is right--made me laugh. I was 9 years old when I learned just how heavy an old Chevrolet's door actually was as the last bolt came out of the door hinge. Ha. :o
Jack