I have a Bradford White gas water heater. By coincidence, we noticed that the burner flame pops all of a sudden and a big flame starts up in the unit (see video for location).
I sat for an hour in the garage to observe. The burner came on as we used hot water, everything was normal. After 5 – 10 minutes, there was a big pop sound as if a burst gas was supplied and a big flame came on as can be seen in the video. I then moved the temperature knob to low and the flame died down.
See attached video. Any idea why this would happen? Recommendation?
Video updated on March 15th at approximately 3:30 pm ET.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfi95sw371rls14/Video%20Mar%2015%2C%2010%2054%2014%20AM.mov?dl=0
Best Answer
Want to share what I learned.
Thanks to Ed Beal who provided suggestion. I opened the unit and removed the burner assembly and cleaned the filter area. There was not much there. This did not help the situation.
Called our local plumber who guessed that the burner assembly was damaged. He was right. The burner assembly which looked like a exhaust on a car had a tear in the mesh. New burner assembly was installed and we are all good.
I have been told by multiple plumbers that they highly recommend Bradford White including the most recent plumber. With that said, I am not too thrilled with their product. Within the last 5 years (unit was purchased in 2014), we have had to shell out close to $700/- in repairs. This does not include parts because the unit was still under warranty. First two incidents dealt with the control unit by Honeywell that was bad. Now the burner unit.
Anyway, wanted to share my experience.