SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200120-0EC71-2147375312. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Whirlpool NU40t62-403 (Whirlpool40 Gallon natural gas water heater Model 1405t476651). Incident: Water heater (whirlpool) from 2014 (here when we bought the house spring 2018) shut off in the middle of the night between Jan 1 2020 and Jan 2 2020. When I woke up in the morning I followed the instructions to relight but was unable to get the pilot going. I called the Whirlpool service hotline after several attempts because our water heater was still under warranty. They took me though all the steps several times, but could not get it to light. They said they would send me out a gas control valve. Days later it arrived and I replaced the gas control valve, but still could not get the pilot to light. After calling back the service line they told me they would send me a Thermopyle and the rest of the electronics. After taking apart the front of the unit I discover that the old igniter was melted and shorting out against the air intake tube. After replacing the igniter wire I successfully got the pilot to ignite. I then turned the gas valve to low which lit, but glowed a dull hazy orange flame for about thirty seconds at which point a blue flame began backfiring out the air intake tube repeatedly which sounded like a jet engine. I immediately shut the gas off and called again the hotline. They told me that my intake screen was dirty or my air flow was being restricted through the vent tube leaving my residence. I took apart the entire burner which I noticed had holes in the top of the screen. I used a shop vac to clean the screens (which looked clean already) and I inspected the air exhaust vent which looked clean and flowed freely. At this point I reassembled the unit and r