Very little hot water/no hot water in shower

[Tipofthespork]

Hello everyone (first post in the group)

My family and I just purchased a 2022 Wildwood 31KQBTS and it’s our first rig.

So the short of it is I’m getting very little hot water out of my faucets and zero hot water out of my shower.

I’ve read a bunch and watched videos. My hot water heater is heating up the water (tested at the pressure relief valve). I have the 2 valve set up and according to all the videos I watched they are in the correct position.

I’m using electric instead of propane but that the ability to use both. I do not have a miser (that I know of)

This is our first camper and I’m clueless on pretty much everything. Trial and error/YouTube is getting me by. Thanks for any help y’all can give.

[wmtire]

Originally Posted by Tipofthespork

Hello everyone (first post in the group)

My family and I just purchased a 2022 Wildwood 31KQBTS and it’s our first rig.

So the short of it is I’m getting very little hot water out of my faucets and zero hot water out of my shower.

I’ve read a bunch and watched videos. My hot water heater is heating up the water (tested at the pressure relief valve). I have the 2 valve set up and according to all the videos I watched they are in the correct position.

I’m using electric instead of propane but that the ability to use both. I do not have a miser (that I know of)

This is our first camper and I’m clueless on pretty much everything. Trial and error/YouTube is getting me by. Thanks for any help y’all can give.

When you say little or no 'hot water'.....are you referring to the temperature or the volume?

[cboss]

Have you checked your aerators? They sometimes get clogged up with construction debris.
Is the shower "wand" valve in the on position?
BTW: Welcome from Upstate NY! Lots of good info here!

[Tipofthespork]

Originally Posted by wmtire

When you say little or no 'hot water'.....are you referring to the temperature or the volume?

Temperature.

It really really sounds like the bypass issue I’ve read about but the valves are in the correct position. I’ve toyed with changing their position to no avail.

[Tipofthespork]

I haven’t checked that. Guess I’ll go on the hunt for where those are ��. Thanks

[wmtire]

Can you post a pic of the valves behind the water heater. We might see something you don't to help

[tomkatb]

The two showers, in the rv and the outside one can be set to bypass. That will do this.

Outside. Carefully turn both valves off. Inside they usually have a bypass button.

Turn the gas heater on. I.e. both. Wait an hour.

Do your testing at the outside shower. .

[Chuck_S]

1. New trailers seem to come with the water heater bypassed which your symptoms indicate.

2. These water heaters in bypass mode can also can come empty which means the electric element will burn out before you say "*#@*" and you'll never get heated water until you replace this high demand part available at every RV dealer -- and at Lowes or Home Depot for half the RV-price. Trying to run an empty water on propane usually just shuts off the gas there.

3. Turn off the bypass and fill the tank, then try propane. Long enough for a healthy flame. Switch that off and try Electric. Note there's a 120vAC breaker in your panel for this and a switch outside on the back of the water heater as well. Maybe an inside switch too. My outside switch had a safety clip to keep it off and I thought electric didn't work.

-- Chuck

[KSH]

Also make sure your outside shower is turned off. If you have it open and the water stopped on the shower head the cold can run back in to the hot water side.

[NavyLCDR]

Originally Posted by Chuck_S

1. New trailers seem to come with the water heater bypassed which your symptoms indicate.

2. These water heaters in bypass mode can also can come empty which means the electric element will burn out before you say "*#@*" and you'll never get heated water until you replace this high demand part available at every RV dealer -- and at Lowes or Home Depot for half the RV-price. Trying to run an empty water on propane usually just shuts off the gas there.

3. Turn off the bypass and fill the tank, then try propane. Long enough for a healthy flame. Switch that off and try Electric. Note there's a 120vAC breaker in your panel for this and a switch outside on the back of the water heater as well. Maybe an inside switch too. My outside switch had a safety clip to keep it off and I thought electric didn't work.

-- Chuck

Can you explain how they would be getting hot water out of the t/p relief valve?

[Tipofthespork]

Originally Posted by wmtire

Can you post a pic of the valves behind the water heater. We might see something you don't to help

I’ll do that soon as I get back. Thanks.

Also, I read somewhere that the water pump shouldn’t be on when connected to city water. Any chance that causes the issue? I turned it off before we left and will check when I get back.

[Tipofthespork]

Originally Posted by KSH

Also make sure your outside shower is turned off. If you have it open and the water stopped on the shower head the cold can run back in to the hot water side.

I don’t believe we have an outside shower. If there is I can’t find it. Haha

[mlafleur]

In older rigs (happened to me last year) the check valve on the water heater outlet sometimes go bad. There was little to no hot water coming into the entire plumbing system. Replaced the check valve, problem solved.

[Tipofthespork]

Hey everyone. Thanks for all the advice.

So turns out once I turned the water pump off (because we are on city water) the problem went away.

[aceinspp]

Thanks for posting the end results. Glade you got it figured out. Later RJD

[5picker]

Well... I hope your issues are solved but what you indicated doesn't make sense.

The water pump supplies water to the plumbing system in the same manner as the city water does. In fact, they are plumbed together.

While is isn't a good idea to have both on under normal circumstances (because of potential backflow issues to the fresh water tank with high city water pressure) it also isn't a complete no-no.

One last thing... you indicated you left the R/V with both the pump on and the city water on. It is highly recommended that when leaving your R/V for more than a walk around the park, that you shut off any supply of water to the R/V.

There have been many reports of a failed plumbing fitting/line or toilet valve sticking and flooding the R/V. Folks have returned to water running out the front door and storage compartments.

[Tipofthespork]

Originally Posted by 5picker

Well... I hope your issues are solved but what you indicated doesn't make sense.

The water pump supplies water to the plumbing system in the same manner as the city water does. In fact, they are plumbed together.

While is isn't a good idea to have both on under normal circumstances (because of potential backflow issues to the fresh water tank with high city water pressure) it also isn't a complete no-no.

One last thing... you indicated you left the R/V with both the pump on and the city water on. It is highly recommended that when leaving your R/V for more than a walk around the park, that you shut off any supply of water to the R/V.

There have been many reports of a failed plumbing fitting/line or toilet valve sticking and flooding the R/V. Folks have returned to water running out the front door and storage compartments.

Right?! I’m a total newbie and nothing I read mentioned the water pump and it doesn’t make sense.

I stumbled upon a thread of some people saying it doesn’t matter if it’s on and some saying it does. Figured why not try it. Once we turned it off we immediately got hot water. Hopefully it wasn’t a fluke.

[wmtire]

Originally Posted by Tipofthespork

Right?! I’m a total newbie and nothing I read mentioned the water pump and it doesn’t make sense.

I stumbled upon a thread of some people saying it doesn’t matter if it’s on and some saying it does. Figured why not try it. Once we turned it off we immediately got hot water. Hopefully it wasn’t a fluke.

Yeah, I am trying to get my head around this too, about the water pump affecting the hot water...since it still goes thru the water heater tank.

Can I ask a few follow up questions, mostly about time?

1. You said you were using electric heating mode, which does take a bit of time to heat the water inside the tank. From when you first attempted to try to get heated water at the taps in the RV, how much time had you allowed for the water to get heated from the time you had turned on the electric element mode of heating?

2. When you turn on the hot water taps, how much time are you allowing for the hot water to get from the tank to the taps? (it's not instantaneous)

3. You mentioned taking pics when you got back to the RV in your quoted post below. Did you leave the electric heating element off while you were gone from the RV, and if so, did you keep the water pump off when getting back to it then trying to see if hot water came out of the taps? I am asking this to see if there is a correlation to maybe the electric element having enough time to heat the water while you were gone, then it 'seems' like you got it first thing when you got back after turning off the pump.

Originally Posted by Tipofthespork

I’ll do that soon as I get back. Thanks.

Also, I read somewhere that the water pump shouldn’t be on when connected to city water. Any chance that causes the issue? I turned it off before we left and will check when I get back.

Thanks for any clues you can provide as we always like to be sure of things.

Since you stated you are a new RV owner, this thread link may help on future things and is aimed at new owners like yourself. You can read at your leisure.

https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...ts-157524.html

[Tipofthespork]

Originally Posted by wmtire

Yeah, I am trying to get my head around this too, about the water pump affecting the hot water...since it still goes thru the water heater tank.

Can I ask a few follow up questions, mostly about time?

1. You said you were using electric heating mode, which does take a bit of time to heat the water inside the tank. From when you first attempted to try to get heated water at the taps in the RV, how much time had you allowed for the water to get heated from the time you had turned on the electric element mode of heating?

2. When you turn on the hot water taps, how much time are you allowing for the hot water to get from the tank to the taps? (it's not instantaneous)

3. You mentioned taking pics when you got back to the RV. Did you leave the electric heating element on while you were gone from the RV, and if so, did you turn the water pump off as your first thing when getting back to it then trying to see if hot water came out of the taps? I am asking this to see if there is a correlation to maybe the electric element having enough time to heat the water while you were gone, then it 'seems' like you got it first thing when you got back after turning off the pump.

Thanks for any clues you can provide as we always like to be sure of things.

Since you stated you are a new RV owner, this thread link may help on future things and is aimed at new owners like yourself. You can read at your leisure.

https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...ts-157524.html

Yeah absolutely. So here’s our timeline.

We purchased the camper Thursday morning and utilized the dealers “newbie sites” (they have a small campground for you to stay at the first night incase you have questions/issues).

We arrived at their campground around noon on Thursday. It took us FOREVER to hook everything up because we went exceptionally slow to ensure we did it right.

We didn’t take showers that night because the site didn’t have sewer hook up and we were afraid of how much water we’d use.

Friday we left that sight and went to our “home for the next couple weeks”. Again, took forever to hook everything up (including parking to close to a tree for the slide and having to move it 2 feet left).

Id say we got hooked up about 2pm. We too showers around 10pm which is when we found the water issues.

We waited until the next morning (yesterday) and tried again. That’s when I asked the question here.

I stumbled upon the water pump thing and flipped it off. We then went shopping/lunch and when we got back the water was good to go.

It takes about 20-30 seconds for hot water to come out once the tap is on. But we got 5 showers in last night (waiting about 20 mins between) and had no issues.

[KSH]

For faster hot water recovery you can use both gas and electric at the same time. Less waiting between showers.