Is This Heater A Millivolt System?

[harryc123]

Hello everyone! First time poster here!

I have a question regarding a used Teledyne Laars series 1 heater that I had the opportunity to buy at a very inexpensive price. It was purchased off of an elderly couple

who had it installed in their house from the early 90's and didn't use it too much. I have bought it from them for $100.00 and have been researching its installation, which

seems pretty straight foward. Its a natural gas unit that has a pilot light. I will be having a plumber come and hook up the gas, but my question is regarding the ignition.

I do not have much experience with pool heaters and cannot tell if this unit uses a millivolt system, or if it requires external power. From what I can tell you, there are

two red thin wires that protrude out of the case, but when I follow them back they are attached to two white wires. The white wires have a big red tag on them that say to "attach

a firemans switch here if using a timer". From what I believe this is not an external power wire, and since I'm not using a timer I should reconnect the two white wires together.

Am I correct in doing this?

[Pool Clown]

You have a millivolt heater there. The wires can be connected to your time clock if it is equipped with a fireman's switch. This is a switch that will disable the heater about 15 min. before the pump turns off for the day. This allows the heater, if running at the time, to shut down and cool off before the water (i.e. coolant) stops moving thru it.

[cena2020]

A millivolt system should operate and maintain the heater fine without having to relight the pilot. The only problem with a millivolt system is they are sensitive to how far the wire to the thermostat goes. You are working with such low voltage, that if you have excess wire, sometimes it will drop the voltage too low to work. On a pool heater however, the thermostat should be right there on the inlet water line and should function fine. If you are having a problem with the pilot going out or the gas valve not cycling consistantly, you can change out the thermopyle and it should work with no problem.