suburban water heater bad wiring

[James1001]

Hi guys,

I just signed up to the forum, because I wanted to give people a heads up.

I have a Coachmen 323BHDS with a suburban water heater. Last summer, I noticed a faint electrical burn smell. The smell cycled, and I narrowed it down to the water heater, and turned of the unit and breaker, and used propane from then on.

I thought mice might have chewed the supply feed, but it looked good. As an aside, found five holes in the frame rails that were not plugged with a plastic plug, or foamed, so beware of that as well.

Anyways, got around to more investigation. Accessed the water heater, and pulled the supply feed from the junction box after releasing the strain relief.

Marrette had loosened on the hot wire, and completely melted the marrette, and about an inch up the hot wire. Worse, if I had not noticed, this would have burned down the trailer, because the ground wire was cut short and not connected to the metal junction box. The ground not connected to the junction box prevented the breaker from tripping. Since the breaker did not trip, the wire insulation would have eventually caught fire, IMHO.

Be safe,
James