2019s water heater woes

[Suru]

Can anyone help me with my water heater? Our trailer is a 2019 Rockwood 2109s Mini Lite. The water heater lights on gas and feels warm to the touch after a while, but no hot water comes out of the faucets. We were told there was a bypass valve for wnterizing which we cannot find. The valves are in the storage compartment behind a panel and very difficult to get to.

We have a valve near the water filter canister, a valve at the top of the water heater connected to a red hot water line, and a valve at the bottom of the water heater connected to a blue cold water line and that's it. I don't see a bypass valve between the two. We also have the recirculating hot water device on our shower.

Water is getting into the tank and heating up, but we can't figure out which way to turn which valves so hot water goes to the faucets. And as I mentioned before, you almost have to be a contortionist to access these valves. Can anyone help us? Thank you!O

[rockfordroo]

Here's a pic of the most common WH valve arrangement.



Note that typically, the valve handle in line with the pipe is OPEN and the handle perpendicular to the pipe is CLOSED.

They will be directly behind the water heater. Looking at your unit online, it would appear your WH is just to the rear of your entry door, meaning the WH is under your counter between the sink and the outside wall. So I'm guessing you'd access the valves from under the sink.

Oh, and you may very well have to remove a panel or something to get to them.

Note that the manufacturers have come up with a number of ways to plumb these valves. I've attached a pic of about 8 ways they've come up with.

Good luck.

[RandK-M]

If it's the same as my 2017 2109s, the water heater bypass valves like RockfordRoo posted the pictures of are behind the curved panel inside the drivers side pass through storage on the right. There were 2 screws in the curved pannel that screw into the exterior wall from inside the pas-through storage to access the water heater and valves. I left the screws out of mine after I opened it up the first time and the wood paneling can just pop back in and is held tight enough by the frame around the pass through hatch. Makes it easier to get access to the water heater without having to remove screws.


The valves you;re talking about near the pump are not the bypass valves. Once you remove the panel I mentioned, it will look just like the pictures posted in the previous post.


Ray

[rockfordroo]

What RandK-M said. My WH location description appears to be incorrect. Not sure which unit I was looking at, but it apparently wasn't a 2109S. I must have fat-fingered the number. (I think I put in 2509S. Sorry.)

[Suru]

Thank you Rockfordroo and Rand K-M for your replies. I think we have figured it out. It looks like we have the type of "2-way valves" shown in figure 3b on the diagram Rockfordroo provided. (THANK YOU!) It started snowing this afternoon, so tomorrow we are going to try to turn the valves in the position shown in that diagram (toward the water heater instead of inline with the hose) and see if that works. I'll let you all know how it goes.

BTW - Forest River installed the water heater valves and the water filter canister in the worst possible place. They are behind a curved panel that you have to unscrew and pull out in the corner of the storage area in the front of the trailer. Then you have to crawl in the storage space sideways in order to get to them. Crazy!

[Thurman]

IF you have the outside shower set-up check the faucets on those to assure that both of them are closed. IF they are open at all they can cause hot water and cold water to cross over giving you warm water in the unit

[copanocruisin]

As Thurman mentioned, the outside shower valve got to us once when our 1st travel trailer was new. Best of luck .......cC

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by Suru

Thank you Rockfordroo and Rand K-M for your replies. I think we have figured it out. It looks like we have the type of "2-way valves" shown in figure 3b on the diagram Rockfordroo provided. (THANK YOU!) It started snowing this afternoon, so tomorrow we are going to try to turn the valves in the position shown in that diagram (toward the water heater instead of inline with the hose) and see if that works. I'll let you all know how it goes.

BTW - Forest River installed the water heater valves and the water filter canister in the worst possible place. They are behind a curved panel that you have to unscrew and pull out in the corner of the storage area in the front of the trailer. Then you have to crawl in the storage space sideways in order to get to them. Crazy!

If FR is still using the FR1/KW1 filter, you may want to remove it. Lots of threads here on the forum about the filter leaking, or worse yet, cracking and flooding trailers. See here:

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...pen-57725.html

It looks like this:



A 67 cent coupler from Home Depot will take care of it.





Then use a blue Camco or other external filter.

[RandK-M]

Originally Posted by Suru

BTW - Forest River installed the water heater valves and the water filter canister in the worst possible place. They are behind a curved panel that you have to unscrew and pull out in the corner of the storage area in the front of the trailer. Then you have to crawl in the storage space sideways in order to get to them. Crazy!

They must've changed the design some. On my 2017 the filter and pump are on the front wall in the pass-through storage, but very easy to get to since they're right inside the pass-through hatch. No climbing in at all and I only have to reach in like a foot for the filter. The pump is like 6 inches from the door. The water heater and bypass valves are behind the curved pannel on the opposite side, but also only about a foot in from the outside and very easy to reach.


I did replace my FR1 filter housing with a good Pentek brand that is better quality and I can use any 10" filter cartridge I want that's available anywhere and all much cheaper than the KW1.


Ray

[cavie]

This thread is going sideways

[Suru]

Originally Posted by Thurman

IF you have the outside shower set-up check the faucets on those to assure that both of them are closed. IF they are open at all they can cause hot water and cold water to cross over giving you warm water in the unit

Yep we have an outside shower, so thank you so much for providing that tip. The last time when drained it to winterize the faucets might not have been shut. There is close 6 inches of snow on the ground at my house and it's still coming down, so as soon as the weather is better we'll fill the trailer back up with water and check it all out.

Also, I think we will definitely get rid of that dumb water filter. It's located at least two feet into the storage area and very hard to get to. When you want to remove it, you have to turn it sideways to get it out of the the little cubby hole it's in and water spills everywhere. There is no way to keep antifreeze out of the canister when we winterize, so we have to dump it out. I don't know why FR located it where it is. Seriously, I have to crawl half-way into the storage area to reach it. With our previous trailer we used an external filter and as far as I know, it worked fine.

Again, thanks for all the useful info! I appreciate that everyone on this forum are so extremely nice and willing to help us out

[Suru]

Well, we figured out what was going on with the water heater. Instead of a separate line and bypass valve making that "H" configuration, we have 2 two- way valves going to and from the water heater. These valves need to be turned perpendicular to the line and toward the water heater to open the valve letting cold water into the WH and hot water out of the WH to the trailer.

I crawled back in there and found, way in the back and taped around a water line upside down and so it was facing the wall, a sticker that said to turn the valves toward the water heater to operate. I wish it would have been taped by whoever installed it so that I could have seen it.

Thank you again for everyone's help, especially those diagrams.

[rockfordroo]

Glad you got it figured out. Getting to the valves is half the battle!