Water Temperature

Bearlover · 06-12-2015, 05:15 PM

How hot should the water get using the electric heating element? Mine has been on for 24 hours, and it would give a nice shower, but not be hot enough to wash dishes. Also, is the heating element all or nothing, or can it be working at a diminished capacity? (kinda like some people I know

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KDHfan · 06-12-2015, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bearlover

How hot should the water get using the electric heating element? Mine has been on for 24 hours, and it would give a nice shower, but not be hot enough to wash dishes. Also, is the heating element all or nothing, or can it be working at a diminished capacity? (kinda like some people I know

)

One temperature only. Unfortunately, they can't be adjusted. Electric or propane should not matter as far as the temperature. The only advantage to having it set to propane is a faster recovery time. However, an advantage of setting it to electric is your paying for it in your site fee, might as well use it.

2015 Coachmen Apex 288BHS
2014 Toyota Tundra 5.7L CrewMax

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rockfordroo · 06-12-2015, 05:52 PM

Check the bypass valve on your water heater. I suspect it's not fully closed. Another guy just had the same problem earlier this week.

See this thread:

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...hot-84354.html

Post #38 on page 4 of the thread shows an excellent pic of what your valves should look like.

Charles Firth · 06-12-2015, 05:57 PM

The hot water tanks are small, only 5-7 gallons (I think). Mine recovers fairly fast. We do take Navy showers to conserve the hot water. I usually only use mine on electric. I never tried it using both propane and electric, I think my suburban will not run on both. The propane shuts off when the water reaches a certain temp. Using propane will heat the water faster. I use the campground power that I paid for.

OldCoot · 06-12-2015, 05:58 PM

You probably have 132° hi limits on both propane and electric. You can replace them with 142° hi limits if you want. We did and found out it takes less hot water to accomplish the tasks.

rockfordroo · 06-12-2015, 06:12 PM

OC and Charles - The OPs problem seems to be the opposite of the other thread I linked to. He has hot water for shower, but not for dishes. Other poster had hot water in kitchen, but not in the shower. Probably same cause, but relative locations of the shower, kitchen and HWH are making the problem swap locations (shower vs kitchen).

Charles Firth · 06-12-2015, 06:22 PM

Rockfordroo, I agree I did not read it properly, the by pass must be in the wrong position. Although I wonder what would happen if you were washing dishes and someone else taking a shower how would the water be distributed. I guess it would be about the same as your home. I had my by pass in the wrong position on our first camping trip, plenty of hot water in the tank, but nothing coming out the faucets. When I finally took a long hard look at it I realized it was operator error.

rockfordroo · 06-12-2015, 06:28 PM

Charles - yeah, I had my bypass valve break (wasn't open, when the handle said it was). I only got hot water for about 5 secs, basically the small amount of water near the HWH that got hot by conduction from the water heater. In about 5 sec it would get swamped by the cold water from the bypass valve. Really took me a while to figure it out, since the valve APPEARED to be in the correct position.

OldCoot · 06-12-2015, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

OC and Charles - The OPs problem seems to be the opposite of the other thread I linked to. He has hot water for shower, but not for dishes. Other poster had hot water in kitchen, but not in the shower. Probably same cause, but relative locations of the shower, kitchen and HWH are making the problem swap locations (shower vs kitchen).

Could be, but the temperature to take a shower and to do dishes is quite a difference. TOWTA wants scalding hot water for dishes but only tepid for a shower.

mark0224 · 06-12-2015, 06:43 PM

Has to be bypass. Sounds like hot water tap only is turned on in shower and the bypass is acting as a mixer valve so shower temp is comfortable and in kitchen that temp isn't good enough. If the valve handle forms a t with the pipe the valve is off if it is any other position it will mix cold water with the hot.

Bearlover · 06-12-2015, 06:55 PM

The bypass valves are open. But now, that is the least of my problems. The fridge is not working. It has been plugged in since yesterday. I checked the breakers and fuses. The lights on the fridge are working.

Bearlover · 06-12-2015, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark0224

Has to be bypass. Sounds like hot water tap only is turned on in shower and the bypass is acting as a mixer valve so shower temp is comfortable and in kitchen that temp isn't good enough. If the valve handle forms a t with the pipe the valve is off if it is any other position it will mix cold water with the hot.

THANKS. I looked again after reading this. I opened the HW heater bypass valves, but forgot to close the valve between them. That should solve the problem.

mark0224 · 06-12-2015, 08:04 PM

The lights your talking about are on the control board, open the panel outside and ck the outlet there to see if you have electricity there. If that has electricity I don't know. try using propane to run it. This is what I got when I looked it up
RV Fridge Troubleshooting

rockfordroo · 06-12-2015, 08:32 PM

Quote:

THANKS. I looked again after reading this. I opened the HW heater bypass valves, but forgot to close the valve between them. That should solve the problem.

The valve between them IS the bypass valve. The other two are normally called the hot and cold water inlet valves. You close them and open the bypass valve to "bypass the HWH."

Bearlover · 06-12-2015, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark0224

The lights your talking about are on the control board, open the panel outside and ck the outlet there to see if you have electricity there. If that has electricity I don't know. try using propane to run it. This is what I got when I looked it up
RV Fridge Troubleshooting

The wire to the heater (the thing that is inside the sheet metal tube) shorted out. Why would that happen? And why does the refrigerator need a heater? Is it part of the propane system or is it for defrost? Going to Lancaster, PA on Monday so I will take it back to the dealer when I get back. It is under warranty until July

rockfordroo · 06-12-2015, 09:15 PM

Quote:

And why does the refrigerator need a heater? Is it part of the propane system or is it for defrost?

These are absorption cooling refrigerators. The heat is what supplies the energy to do the cooling. When you're running on 110VAC, the heat is supplied by the electric heater. When you're running on gas, the propane is supplying the heat. (In both cases, the electronic "brain" is powered by 12VDC from your battery; if you're on shore power, your converter will supply the 12VDC while charging your battery). Absorption cooling is explained here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator

Note that some manufacturers also have an electric heating element around the doors to prevent frost buildup. Some of these models have a switch between the fridge and freezer doors to turn the heating element off and some have no way to turn it off. If you are boondocking (running strictly on your battery, with propane doing the cooling) this little door heater will kill your battery very quickly.

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