Replacement on demand water heater

[lefaivre]

Would love to hear feedback from people about replacement water heaters. We own a 2012 390BH60 with a first generation Gerard water heater. In my opinion this thing is a piece of crap and never should have been installed in the first place
In the 9 years we have owned.the unit, this water heater has only funtioned 100 percent proper for about 3 weeks total. The rest of the time was a struggle to get luke warm water.

We have finally had enough and want to replace the unit. The easiest option would be the Gen 2 Garard, however there are a couple of more ... expensive options.

Can I get.feedback please.

[Lincman983]

Truma AquaGO is a very nice unit. Contact Truma

+1 (855) 558-7862

[caflorin]

You're going to hear a lot of input. I have the Girard GSWH-1M. I have had my frustrating moments with it, but will be keeping it. I read all I could about this unit and the competition. Mine does not heat the water as high as some of the other units, but I have found if I adjust the flame to give a good temperature at the shower, I get an even even temperature for showers and of course at the tap. The hot/cold fluctuations seemed to be the biggest complaint with this unit. The other complaint was in cold weather, it didn't get warm enough. If you are going to upgrade, listen to advise, but read all of the specs you can get your hands on.

[treadwelll]

I also had the first generation Girard water heater and absolutely despised it. It finally quit working and I replaced it with the 2nd generation girard after a great deal of research. We have only used it on a couple of trips this year since we replaced the old water heater and wished I had made the change a couple of years ago as it actually works like it is supposed to.

[NMWildcat]

It took you 9 years to decide?
It won't do you any good to hear this but I'll say it anyway. I have the first gen Girard and know of several other folks who have them. Are they perfect? No. But we figured out several work arounds that make it very enjoyable even while boondocking. One is using Shower Miser which allows interruption of flow to the shower head when boondocking, but not the Girard, so there is no temp fluctuation due to flow changes. Another is disabling the auto function sensor so the switch sets it to either high or low burner. If it's still too hot, we open another hot tap to a trickle to increase flow and lower temp further. Never had it not get hot enough.

If I was to get a new RV now I would still get an on demand but would like the newest Truma.

[dave-g]

Truma-


no work around- no fuss- always hot water. I did not pay all this money to have to play with the $%$#@ water heater.

[NMWildcat]

Originally Posted by dave-g

Truma-


no work around- no fuss- always hot water. I did not pay all this money to have to play with the $%$#@ water heater.

I agree with everything you just said. Completely.
I did have to snicker to myself as I think buying an RV (or a boat) is the epitome of spending lots of money just to have to constantly repair, mess with, or 'play' with different aspects of it to be able to continue using it

[anaviator]

We've had experience with several options in the coaches we've owned - traditional tank heater, Girard (Gen2), Truma, and now Aquahot. The Aquahot system is by far the best option but isn't a good retrofit option without some major modifications. The Girard was still a pain - several hoops to jump through to get the water warm, and even then we'd still experience temp drops.

The Truma was MUCH better than the Girard. It's sort of a hybrid - it has a small tank that it keeps hot which reduces the amount of time it takes to get hot water flowing. This is handy when you're boondocking and turning the shower on and off to conserve water. It also seemed to be a lot less sensitive to differences in water pressure. I was happy with the Truma and, more importantly, so was my wife who wants REALLY hot showers.

[Eric B FR Diesel]

I would recommend the Trauma Aqua go, from what I hear from customers the system works well, just make sure that you drain it after using the coach and always store the inlet filter outside of the operational position.

[snoopy1]

Originally Posted by lefaivre

Would love to hear feedback from people about replacement water heaters. We own a 2012 390BH60 with a first generation Gerard water heater. In my opinion this thing is a piece of crap and never should have been installed in the first place
In the 9 years we have owned.the unit, this water heater has only funtioned 100 percent proper for about 3 weeks total. The rest of the time was a struggle to get luke warm water.

We have finally had enough and want to replace the unit. The easiest option would be the Gen 2 Garard, however there are a couple of more ... expensive options.

Can I get.feedback please.

Greetings, say they all have their quirks! Depends on how & where you use them. We had a 99 Winnebago that had a 6 gallon hot water tank that always worked, the downside was boondocking that we mostly did & when showering to save on water, you shut it off & when you turned it back on it was cold, but you could at least work with it!
We now have a Forest river 34QS M/H that has Atwood on demand tankless water heater. You either had cold water or burning hot water. Well until I installed a Shower Miser & that made life better. Though you have to be careful when on city water as when its recyling to your fresh water tank, it will fill it up & overflow! Its great for dry camping, but I'm sure there are those who would say its not good to be drinking that water!
Botton line:: As confucius says: You can please some of the people ALL of the time & all of the people SOME of the time, but you can't please ALL of the people ALL of the time!!
Snoopy

[DouglasReid]

Originally Posted by lefaivre

Would love to hear feedback from people about replacement water heaters. We own a 2012 390BH60 with a first generation Gerard water heater. In my opinion this thing is a piece of crap and never should have been installed in the first place
In the 9 years we have owned.the unit, this water heater has only funtioned 100 percent proper for about 3 weeks total. The rest of the time was a struggle to get luke warm water.

We have finally had enough and want to replace the unit. The easiest option would be the Gen 2 Garard, however there are a couple of more ... expensive options.

Can I get.feedback please.

I have spent TONS of hours researching the very same issue. I am about to purchase the Furrion Tankless WH.

The Truma seems to be a GREAT unit , but it is twice teh cost of this Furrion unit and it has to be installed by a Truma dealer. I like and enjoy doing my own work (some find this a character flaw but is how my dad wired me), so both of those were problems I cannot surmount.

The Suburban unit looks good, also 60,000 BTU but only rated for 1.5 Gallons Per Minute. Also Suburban WILL NOT talk to you about their unit unless you are a dealer or Repair station. They would not tell me so much as the recommended wire size to extend the leads for the Remote Control unit. NO Thank you!

The Furrion has 60,000 BTU instead of 34,000, a digital control to set the output temp as each person desires, and 2.4 Gallons per minute capability.

There are three access door options because Furrion designed them to replace other WH units and has a door available for each option. You want the 16 x 16 door.

I am a nut about researching and getting the best available product when making any large purchase (IMHO this qualifies). Here are links to the Spec Sheet and Installation/Owners manual for this unit:

https://furrion.com/products/2-4gpm-...s-water-heater

https://cdn.accentuate.io/4486627065...9840705255.pdf

https://cdn.accentuate.io/4486627065...9835638826.pdf

I have easy access to the rear of my WH so it is easy to measure the depth of the space my WH is installed in. You need to know that depth because this Furrion unit is deeper by several inches than your Girard Gen1.

The only down side Ive found is the door is only available in white. That would clash with everything else on our unit which are black. A spray can of black paint will solve that problem, but as I said, Im a nut for details on purchases.

In the owners manual Furrion recommends descaling the WH once per year.. To that end Im going to install two 3 Way L type valves to create ports easily accessible in our water inlet dump handle cabinet on the outside of the camper for this process.

While Im at it and have easy access I am going to clean up the Rats Nest of plumbing where the water come in and WH & water pump reside. This is not absolutely necessary but the hard plastic fittings on the PEX pipe scare the hell out of me as far as them cracking and leaking.

So, Im going to redo it all using brass fittings and NO braided hoses (ours look like they are swelling so I want to solve that leak problem before it becomes a leak problem.)

Sorry for getting a bit verbose and giving an answer WAY longer than I first intended. I just wanted to give you all the information I have dug up while researching this.

When I start the install Im going to take pics of before during and after.

:

[OnBarrowedTime]

Originally Posted by lefaivre

Would love to hear feedback from people about replacement water heaters. We own a 2012 390BH60 with a first generation Gerard water heater. In my opinion this thing is a piece of crap and never should have been installed in the first place
In the 9 years we have owned.the unit, this water heater has only funtioned 100 percent proper for about 3 weeks total. The rest of the time was a struggle to get luke warm water.

We have finally had enough and want to replace the unit. The easiest option would be the Gen 2 Garard, however there are a couple of more ... expensive options.

Can I get.feedback please.

I have a 2016 Berkshire XLT to make the original Atwood on demand hot water heater work properly I had to run another faucet on hot to get enough flow og water for it to work. Last week I replaced it with a Truma Comfort water heater and so far no comparison.

[AlexG]

I had Girard gen 2 and then FR switched it for Atwood for me as part of the warranty so I have experience with 2 of them and both had huge problems with fluctuating temperatures.

It would be a non-ending struggle to adjust once you tried to adjust temps while showering that led to a lot of frustration with both units.

We did a lot of reading trying to figure out how to resolve this and found out that these units don't / were not designed to work well with the kind of controls that manufacturers install in our RVs, which are cheap pressure based controls. With these when you adjust the temp WH heater sense changes differences in flow rate and then adjust the flame so you end up with either cold or scalding water then you adjust temp again and the WH adjusts flame again and so on...

While I find my Atwood a complete POS in terms of quality we resolved temperature problems by replacing shower valves with thermostatic instead of pressure about 3 years ago and haven't had any issues since.

If you decide to go with on-demand wh, look into replacing shower controls with thermostatic.

[robo44]

Truma AquaGO ..... perfect fit and works fantastic!!

[Hudahen]

Can Eric Diesel elaborate on "always store the inlet filter outside of the operational position"?
Thanks!

[Eric B FR Diesel]

ON the truma Aqua Go hot water heater there is a yellow drain leaver underneath the cover on the exterior of the unit. I would recommend when placing the RV back into storage you drain the water heater by pulling down on the yellow leaver. when you pull down the yellow leaver you will have access to the water inlet filter.

in the first picture you will see the yellow leaver up, the next picture is the water inlet filter, the 3rd picture is the unit in the drain position with the water inlet filter next to the switch.

Storing the water inlet filter outside the drained unit will help insure that you will not have any problems with the mixing vessel cracking in the winter time or if the temp gets below freezing when you are not using the coach, that is why we recommend.

[DouglasReid]

Originally Posted by Eric B FR Diesel

...................Storing the water inlet filter outside the drained unit will help insure that you will not have any problems with the mixing vessel cracking in the winter time or if the temp gets below freezing when you are not using the coach, that is why we recommend.

Im curious Eric, does Truma say you can use air to blow out that WH or is draining it in that manner the only option?

[Hudahen]

Thank you Eric for the clarification on the inlet filter removal. If there is no freeze danger, and let's say the rig will sit for 3 weeks without use, should I open the drain ballcock below and remove the inlet filter?
Also, how often should I use the Truma descale tablets if we average 10 days a month of use?
Thanks

[dave-g]

Originally Posted by DouglasReid

Im curious Eric, does Truma say you can use air to blow out that WH or is draining it in that manner the only option?

Truma says no air- no antifreeze.

[DouglasReid]

Originally Posted by dave-g

Truma says no air- no antifreeze.

So Im guessing that a bypass and drain is the way to protect it from freezing?