Hi Everyone,

Here's the backstory... I couple of years ago I bought a townhouse and it has a spa in the basement. This spa looked like it hadn't been used for many years and I just let it sit there. A couple of weeks ago I decided to try to get the spa up n' running for the New Years Eve party that I'm hosting.

Here's what I have:

Hayward Pump/Filter/Controller
Teledyne Laars EG-125 Natural Gas Furnace
Viking Spa with 4 Jets
RobertShaw R0027700 Gas Valve

There was some conduit piping that was not connected to anything and just lying there on the pump. For some reason I thought that the conduit was supposed to go to the furnace. So I ran the conduit to the furnace. After I did that I noticed that the pump was not connected to electricity. I look around and found the junction box that had the 220VAC wiring. I ran new pipe to the pump and wired the pump for 220V and then ran new 120VAC wiring to the furnace.

I filled the spa up with water and turned on the pump. Success!!! The pump was running smoothly... with some minor leakages around the pump debris catcher cap, filter cap, and metal to pvc valves. The water shot out of the jets black but after running it for an hour or so the old filter cleaned it up pretty good.

Next up I turned on the heater. FAILURE!!! There were some sparks flying around and a buzzing noise. Then I did some research and found out I did something completely foolish. The heater uses a millivolt gas valve and that I had killed it by supplying it 120VAC.

A week later I received the used replacement gas valve that I ordereded. It was a RobertShaw and it is supposed to be the replacement for the one I broke.

I partially dissassembled the furnace and removed the entire burner assembly (gas valve, burners, pilot generator, etc) for easy access and testing purposes. The burner assembly now sits on top of the furnace and is temporarily connected to the natural gas piping with some yellow flexible gas hose piping made for water boilers.

I installed the new gas valve and connected it to the gas line. Something was not right. There was always gas coming out of the pilot tubing whether the valve was in the off or on position. Only when in the pilot position was there no gas coming out. I removed the gas valve and dissambled it to what could be wrong. When I did that I noticed an engraving on one of the ends that said "IN". I installed the the valve backwards!!!

I reassembled the valve and mounted correctly to the burner assembly. This time it seemed to be working correctly. Gas would only come out of the pilot tubing when in the pilot position and pressed down. I lit the pilot light and it lit up and after 30 seconds it continued to stay on so I knew it was generating enough voltage to operate the valve. I measured how much voltage and it was around 350mV.

Next I jumpered the terminals to activate the main valve to the burners. When I did that I heard a click and then the pilot went out. I suspected that the pilot generator was not creating enough voltage.

So I hooked up a AA battery in place of the pilot generator. The pilot light stayed on with the AA battery connected and when I activated the main valve to the burners I heard it click and the pilot stayed on. So I'm pretty sure that the current pilot generator is not producing enough voltage to activate the main valve without deactivating the pilot valve.

But when I did have the main valve to the burners open there was barely any gas coming out of the burners. When I manually lit the burners the flames were the size of a pilot flame. What could be causing this? I read that this gas valve can also be used for LP gas if the regulator is changed. Is it possible that this valve has the LP regulator and not the natural gas regulator. When that cause that type of problem with too little gas going to the burners?

Also, how big should the pilot flame be? Mine seems a little low. It solid blue in color and maybe 1/4" in size.

Thanks,
Bogdan