When your water heater stops working, you need to find out what is wrong with it as soon as possible. Otherwise, you could risk losing a lot of money if you don’t know how to fix the problem.
So you will want to make sure that you clean your thermocouple on a regular basis. You can easily do this by following these steps, but you will need some basic tools in order to do it correctly.
Follow this step by step to clean your thermocouple
First, make sure that your water heater is unplugged. Then, you can disconnect the wires at the top of the tank, and then pull the thermocouple out. Then, using a pair of pliers, remove the tip of the thermocouple where the wire goes through the insulation.
Next, you can use a wire stripper to cut off the part of the thermocouple that is connected to the wires. And finally, you can use some electrical tape to cover up the end of the thermocouple, so that it’s no longer exposed to the elements.
You need to prepare three things to clean a thermocouple:
- Wire Brush
- Steel Wool
- Dust Remover (Duster)
To follow step by step this tutorial, you can watch video tutorial below:
Let us start, you will have to turn off the power supply and then remove the cover of the water heater. Then you will have to remove all the wires from the thermocouple and then remove the cover of the thermocouple.
After that, you will have to use a pair of pliers and gently pull it out from the holes. Now, you can clean the thermocouple and everything else by using wire brush, steel wool and lastly dust remover.
Don’t forget to check out inside the place of thermocouple, if you see debris and dirt then try to clean it first before you put back thermocouple inside.
Now that you have cleaned your thermocouple, if it still does not work then you can replace it with a new one. But before doing that, you will want to make sure that you have a new thermocouple on hand. You can do this by ordering one online, or by visiting a local store.