Burner Assembly for Natural Gas, 100109203

Briefly, I ordered a burner assembly from a competing website and received the wrong product. I re-ordered the burner assembly from SupplyHouse and received the order promptly in 2 days (ordered on Wed and received on Fri). The customer service reps were helpful and got me the correct product, after I provided them with model and serial numbers. In short, the burner assemble was a perfect replacement for the old assembly, as it should be. The 2 fussy bits of the installation were getting the housing to lay flat when putting the burner door in place and connecting the threaded connections. I used plumber's sealant to prevent gas leakage even though the instructions didn't suggest it. Without it, gas was leaking albeit a small amount. Now, everything works great, the hot water was back on the same day the part arrived, and I saved myself a bunch of money.

While this burner assembly resembled the original, it did not perform well. Initially, the gapping for the electrode was way off where a spark wouldn't even jump. Even after that, the spark carried very weakly, and it took multiple adjustments before the spark would actually light the pilot. The burner would initially light, but the thermocouple was not sending a strong enough signal, and gas valve would close down after a short run. Because this thermocouple is pressed in, I could not replace it with a working one, so I ultimately had to patch up the old burner assembly to get my water heater working. Would really like to just return this poor substitute part.