Electric/Gas Water Heater

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Dan de La Mesa

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Oct 18, 2015
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129
My 2006 Winnebago View has a dual electric or gas water heater which I like to use in electric mode when we have hookups. If I leave it on for more than about 20 minutes, the relief valve starts dumping hot water on the ground. This has never been an issue when using the heater in gas mode.

I'm assuming the two systems have separate thermostats and that the electric one is malfunctioning. I work around the problem by not leaving it on more than 15 minutes at a time. If I forget, the water gets steaming hot and the relief valve fires.

Is replacing the thermo on the electric heater a DIY job? I'm fairly handy, well, for a musician.
 
A 2006 vintage heater should have only one thermostat, shared by gas & electric modes. The exact make/model of heater will allow us to determine that for sure, though. In the single thermostat models the thermostat doesn't directly switch power. Instead, the circuit board reads the open/closed state and turns gas or electric on & off in response.

If it's a single thermostat model, then it would appear the circuit board is defective and not opening the 120v power relay in response to the thermostat.
 
The heater itself has no identifying markings that I can find, however, the literature seems to indicate that the unit is

Atwood, 6-gal
GC6AA-9E

G=Gas
C=Combination gas and electric
6=Capacity
AA=Heating element (not sure, but supposing this refers to the electric element?)
9=(Mystery)
E=Electric ignition

The section on identifying the heater is murky, apparently intending to cover many differing types they used or thought about using in the course of production. I hope this is sufficient information. Thank you for your help.

We're going out to Cibbet's Flat today, a beautiful pine and oak dry campground with no hookups, but boulders, mountains and plentiful rattlesnakes. We'll be using the gas water heater, but will address the electric situation when we return later in the week.
 
I'd be interested what you find out.  On mine the propane must be set higher than the electric, because if I leave them both on the propane keeps cycling to keep the temp up.  If I shut it off, the electric handles it fine.
 
I had the same issue in our previous coach - the relief valve dumping hot water. Turned out to be the circuit board, as Gary suggested.

Kev
 
Okay, so assuming it's the circuit board (sounds expen$ive), what do I do about it? Take it in, or start educating myself (again).
 
It's an easy DIY job. Most RV repair places can test the board. Dinosaur make good replacement boards and has good support
 
I had a similar experience. First I replaced the relief valve, they are notorious for failing . when two weeks later we were awakened by the neighbors pounding on our door to inform us that hot water was running out the rear of the motor home. Had a service tech come out and he replaced the stat on the unit and that fixed the problem. The stat was the cheapest fix. He told us the circuit board rarely fails, but the stats do on a regular basis. His recomendation is to always replace the stat first.
The temperature stats are externally mounted on the tank using a self stick ahesive.
Hope this helps
 
drjobsky said:
First I replaced the relief valve, they are notorious for failing .
Click to expand...

I have been RV'ing for 35 years and I've never had a relief valve fail and I can't ever remember talking with anyone who had one fail. I'm sure it has happened but I don't believe they are notorious for failing. I take mine every 3 or 4 months and open it up with the lever and let it snap shut close. If there's anything inside, this will typically flush it out.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll start with the thermostat.

I've located what appears to be the thermostat as well as a replacement for it on Amazon. It's a flat, black piece of some material that has four wire connections sticking out. I was supposing that they were just pull-off connectors, but a moderate amount of pulling didn't free anything. How do you get those off, once I have a replacement in hand?
 
Dan de La Mesa said:
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll start with the thermostat.

I've located what appears to be the thermostat as well as a replacement for it on Amazon. It's a flat, black piece of some material that has four wire connections sticking out. I was supposing that they were just pull-off connectors, but a moderate amount of pulling didn't free anything. How do you get those off, once I have a replacement in hand?
Click to expand...
The flat black piece of material is just a sticky cover, you have to peal that off. When I ordered the parts it came with a new sticky cover. Behind that cover are the thermostat (T-stat) and the E.C.O. (Emergency cut off) They both have a spring that pushes them onto the tank. You have to push them to the tank and turn them to lock it behind some clips, next test the connections and when all is good attach the new cover. To know what the Thermostat is look for the 140 Fahrenheit or 60 Celsius print. The ECO is probably for 160 F or 70 C.

There is also a nice video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FuBoRRojKcA or https://youtu.be/uYzqP2BFrMk

Easy to do, good luck.
 
Rene T said:
I have been RV'ing for 35 years and I've never had a relief valve fail and I can't ever remember talking with anyone who had one fail. I'm sure it has happened but I don't believe they are notorious for failing. I take mine every 3 or 4 months and open it up with the lever and let it snap shut close. If there's anything inside, this will typically flush it out.
Click to expand...

I had to replace mine and now carry a spare. I had to give my spare to two friends to fix theirs while on WIT campouts. I've been RVing since 1965.
 
I'd suspect that the thermostat has loose or corroded connections than actually beig defective itself.  Most likely it is a simple bi metallic thermocouple. Check the connections and perhaps clean with a pencil eraser.

Ernie
 
I finally got around to ordering and installing a new thermostat on my Atwood water heater. I've been running the heater just long enough to get the hot water I needed for several months now, putting off this project. As responding posters had indicated, it was easy enough, though in my experience, it was unique in that it really didn't relate to any previous installation I had done. It will be much simpler next time, but isn't that always the case?

Afterwards, I ran the WH for an hour on electricity, and it got good and hot, but did not overheat. This seems to have solved the problem.

I had a relief valve fail on a new MH some years ago, so I was prepared to go on to that stage next, but apparently it won't be necessary.

Thanks, as ever, for the excellent advice from the group.

Dan
 
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