I have a 50 gal Whirlpool gas-fired water heater that has been nothing but problems since new. I could regale you with my litany of complaints, but I just discovered something that I thought might be of use to fellow suckers who bought a Whirlpool water heater. The WH would work fine, and after about 18 months, would get weaker and weaker. I replaced parts. Good result. 18 months later, same problems. Thermocouple is fine. Burner is fine. Controller is fine.

I flushed the WH. Now it works. Before you think I'm an idiot, I have owned, and replaced, water heaters as a homeowner for more than 40 years. I know to periodically flush the WH to remove sediment. However, this particular WH must have some kind of design flaw that makes it *very* sensitive to sediment. I just flushed the WH again, and there was VERY LITTLE sediment, but the tip-off was that if I turned the thermostat way up, the burner would run for about 3 minutes and then quit.

Just to summarize, I have a water softener, I have good quality city water with very little sediment, and historically I have flushed every 2-3 years and never had a problem other than maybe wasting a little energy. With this WH, if the tank is not *pristine*, it will somehow trip some kind of ?safety? device and turn off the burner. The problem then times out, and you start all over again.

So if you have one of these POS WH's and you have this set of symptoms, try an ultra-flush. If it works for you, depending on your water quality, you may be in for a flush every 6 months or less!