January 11th, 2010 at 4:43 am
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Heater Element Replacement, Flow-Through Style
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Note that this section is intended for replacement of a standard flow
through heater element that is contained within a stainless steel
housing.
In this particular
example, we are demonstrating the procedure as done on a 1996 model
Hawkeye spa, with a Balboa-Instruments digital spa control
system.
While most spas that have stainless steel flow through heaters are
almost identical, your heater and/or control system may not be, so,
this procedure used may not work for your unit. Your
particular heater element may require more effort and technical
knowledge to replace. If this displayed procedure is
inconsistent with your system design, then do not use this information
to service your spa. This is page 1 of this procedure.
Safety Warnings!
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Remove Power
from the spa/hot tub BEFORE
performing thisprocedure. Failure to comply with this
requirement, can lead toelectrical shock and/or electrocution!
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Disclaimer
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Theinstructions here are
intended for general reference only.
Many hot tubs and
spas are different from the one depicted here, and may require more or
lessmechanical effort or knowledge in order to achieve the
desiredresults.
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READ FIRST BEFORE YOUCONTINUE
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First things first... You MUST remove all sources of power to the spa
to prevent electrical shock. In these two pictures we see
the shut off valves that are used to service the equipment
without draining the spa. You'll need to push these valve
handles in as far as possible to prevent leakage from the spa while you
are working on the heater. If your spa does not have shut off
valves, then you'll need to drain the spa or find some other way to
plug the lines while you work on the heater.
Our next step in removal
is to loosen the black heater union 'collars' and remove the plumbing
from the stainless steel tube..
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Most of the time these collars can be removed simply by turning them,
however, sometimes it will help to loosen the phillips head screws that
hold the two piece clamp together if yours uses one, or by lightly
tapping the collar with a screwdriver and the palm of your hand, if
yours uses the single piece version.
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Inside the spa control pack, locate the heater element studs protruding
through the aluminum case. It may help to move some of the
control cables out of the way in order to see the element here.
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Now this is one part that I enjoy about installing a new heater element
in a system using a standard Balboa-Instruments control
system. In most cases, there's no need to bother with trying
to stop the rotation of the heater element stud, because Balboa uses a
solid copper strap that attaches to the high current bus strip to the
element, negating physical rotation of the connection. Simply
use a pair of pliers, a nut driver, or a socket wrench to loosen and
remove the nuts that attach the strips to the element studs.
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With both heater element nuts removed, now remove the straps from the
high current bus by using a screw driver. Remember to only
remove the screws that hold the straps, not the ones that hold the
circuit board. While you're at it though, now is a good time
to ensure that all of the other screws that hold the circuit board to
the bus strip are good and tight. (A loose connection here
can cause the circuit board traces to burn up).
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This is what the whole thing looks like with the electrical "business
end" removed from the heater element.Now, you're at a turning point as
to how to remove the element from the heater tube. I've seen
a few of these where using a pair of pliers on the heater element
retaining nuts is enough to remove them.
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But this will vary with the size of the hole cut into the aluminum
case, and the mounted position of the heater tube. The odds
of performing this task with the heater tube attached to the case is
slim, but try it once anyway, you may get lucky. Using a pair
of pliers, remove the large nuts that attach the element to the heater
tube.
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Since that didn't work for us, we're now faced with the task of
removing the spa control box to take the heater tube off to gain full
access to the element retaining nuts. Here I'm using a socket wrench to
remove the mounting bolts that are holding the spa pack to the spa
base.
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With the spa pack removed from the base, this is what you should
see. The round looking device on the left with two wires
attached to it is the pressure switch. The captive flange
attached in the middle is a receptacle for the high-limit sensor (and
sometimes the temperature sensor, it's why you'll probably find two
indentations in the heater tube, and only one used).
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Loosen the retaining nut on the captive flange, and the high limit
sensor should slide right out.
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Next, remove the two wires from the pressure switch. Be sure
that you pull on the quick disconnect lugs, not the wires!
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Tags:
balboa instruments,
heater element,
replacement
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