The Water Heater Industry Joint Research and Development Consortium

Rheem Manufacturing Company

Aos Holding Company

Bradford White Corporation

Gordon W Stretch

John H Scanlon

Eric M Lannes

Bruce A Hotton

Gary A Elder

Larry D Kidd

James T Campbell

James W Mears

Thomas E Archibald

James M Martin

David M Hanning

Michael W Gordon

Garrett L Doss

Troy E Trant

Herbert Edward Smith

William T Harrigill

Robert Stuart Glass

Wilbur L Haag, Jr

Michael L Burney

A gas water heater includes a power burner, a flue tube, an exhaust plenum, and a draft hood. The flue tube includes a portion that describes at least a 360&#xb0; loop. Products of combustion are forced through the flue tube under the influence of the power burner, and enter the exhaust plenum. In the exhaust plenum, the pressure of the products of combustion drops such that the products of combustion flow into the draft hood substantially entirely under the influence of natural convection. In one embodiment, the power burner fires down into the flue tube through a side wall of the water heater, the loop of the flue tube is near the bottom of the water heater, and the plenum is in the top of the water heater.

Gas water heater

A fuel-fired heating appliance has multiple premix type fuel burners horizontally disposed in a row in its combustion chamber and operable in a staged manner. The burners are upwardly spaced apart from a rigid fiberboard insulation panel structure extending along the bottom interior side of the combustion chamber. Sandwiched between and contacting the bottom sides of the burners and the top side of the fiberboard panel is a blanket of resilient ceramic fiber insulation material which functions to (1) prevent uncombusted fuel from firing burners from being circulated under non-firing burners, (2) increase the operating temperatures of bottom sides of the burners during firing thereof to lessen thermal stresses in the firing burners, (3) resiliently permit differential thermal expansion of the burners, and (4) reduce harmonic resonance of the burners, and associated operational noise of the appliance, during firing of the burners.

Heating apparatus having insulation-contacted fuel burners

A gas-fired water heater is provided with a combustion shutoff system which precludes further combustion within the water heater's combustion chamber in response to a combustion temperature therein reaching a predetermined level correlated to and indicative of a predetermined, undesirably high concentration of carbon monoxide present in the combustion chamber. In various illustrated embodiments thereof, the combustion shutoff system is operative to terminate further combustion air inflow to the combustion chamber, or terminate further fuel flow to the burner portion of the water heater.

Fuel-fired heating appliance with temperature-based fuel shutoff system

A fuel-fired, power vented water heater has a combustion chamber with an outer wall portion defined by an arrestor plate in which flame quenching air inlet openings are formed. All combustion air entering the combustion chamber must first pass through an air inlet plenum extending outwardly from the arrestor plate and then pass inwardly through the flame quenching openings into the combustion chamber. The air inlet plenum is provided with a normally closed inlet damper which automatically closes during non-firing periods of the water heater to prevent passage of combustion air (and extraneous flammable vapors, if present, adjacent the water heater) into the combustion chamber, and opens during firing periods of the water heater to permit operative combustion air delivery to the combustion chamber.

Water heater with normally closed air inlet damper

A gas-fired water heater has a combustion chamber with a bottom wall defined by a perforated flame arrestor plate forming a portion of a flow path through which combustion air may be supplied to a burner structure within the combustion chamber. During firing of the water heater a combustion air shutoff system having a heat-frangible temperature sensing structure disposed within the combustion chamber senses an undesirable temperature increase in the combustion chamber, caused by for example a partial blockage of the flow path, and responsively terminates further air flow into the combustion chamber, thereby shutting down the burner, prior to the creation in the combustion chamber of a predetermined elevated concentration of carbon monoxide.

Combustion air shutoff apparatus for a fuel-fired heating appliance

Methods of operating a fuel-fired heating apparatus

Fuel-fired heating appliance with combustion air shutoff system having frangible temperature sensing structure

A gas-fired water heater has a combustion chamber with a bottom wall defined by a perforated flame arrestor plate forming a portion of a flow path through which combustion air may be supplied to a burner s structure within the combustion chamber. During firing of the water heater a combustion air shutoff system senses an undesirable temperature increase in the combustion chamber, caused by for example a partial blockage of the flow path, and responsively terminates further air flow into the combustion chamber, thereby shutting down the burner, prior to the creation in the combustion chamber of a predetermined elevated concentration of carbon monoxide.

Fuel-fired heating appliance with combustion chamber temperature-sensing combustion air shutoff system

A power vented, gas fired water heater has a main gas burner disposed within a combustion chamber partially bounded by an arrestor plate having a spaced series of flame quenching combustion air inlet openings therein. To provide for a &ldquo;soft&rdquo; ignition of extraneous flammable vapors entering the combustion chamber and to limit the build-up of unignited flammable vapors within the combustion chamber during non-demand periods of the water heater, a non-flame type ignition device is disposed within the combustion chamber and operated at least intermittently during such non-demand periods.

Power vented, fuel fired water heater with soft ignition system

The storage tank portion of a water heater has an outwardly projecting threaded pipe coupling fitting and is disposed within a jacket structure that forms an enclosed insulation space around the storage tank, the outer end of the pipe coupling fitting being spaced inwardly apart from a pipe connection opening in the jacket structure. A generally tubular foam stop member having a convexly curved side portion is positioned within the insulation space before the space is filled by an injection process with a liquid foam insulation material. The foam stop member receives the pipe coupling, is axially pressed between the storage tank and the jacket structure, and forms a seal around the pipe coupling fitting and around the jacket structure pipe connection opening. During injection of the liquid foam insulation material into the enclosed insulation space, the foam stop member serves as a relatively small barrier that essentially precludes the liquid foam from escaping outwardly through the jacket structure pipe connection opening or entering the pipe coupling.

Water heater foam stop apparatus

Water heater foam stop apparatus and associated methods

Method of insulating a water heater and preventing flash using a foam

Growing community of inventors

Oxnard, CA, United States of America

Gordon W Stretch