My gas hot water heater is two years old and the pilot light won't stay lit. A plumber said the screen is probably clogged. Is this something a licensed plumber has to fix or can I do it myself without causing damage to the hot water heater?

You need to call or contact someone that deals with heating and cooling. My guess would be the thermocouple.

Hi Ehamilton:

You can definitely do this yourself!

The plastic screen is usually located at the front, bottom, center (or side) of the unit... clear this screen and see if anything shows up. If you have a vacuum you can also vacuum into the hole a bit.

Otherwise, let me know the name brand of the water heater... see what else we can tell you.

Most likely the thermocouple and the combustion chamber seal will need to be replaced... also something you can do if you are reasonably handy... ;)

MARK

Right in the bottom of your water heater, underneath the burner is a filter, it is called an anti-explosion device.

If you go to Lowe's and look under the water heaters, you will see that all the air for combustion has to enter from the bottom of the heater through a small panel of tiny louvers. So small you can't even slide a FLAT toothpick through them. These get clogged with dust and lint. When this louver gets so stopped up that the fire does not burn all of the fuel right the flame will smother itself or the pilot out. The panel is almost inaccessible for cleaning, and in some installation with a drip pan under the heater it is absolutely impossible.

I have use a high powered vacuum cleaner that you can reverse the flow on and take the vent off the top of the water heater and put the vacuum hose into the vent at the top and blow down through the heater. Hoping while you do this it will blow some of the lint and dust off the filter.

I have tried this and failed several times and the distributor I bought from replaced the water heater free of charge.

Some of the water heaters have the filter made of cordierite and some have metal with fine slits in it. You can break out the cordierite ones, but I am not sure how safe it is, all I know is that some people do it. If you do break it out I did not tell you to.