No hot water

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Troy and Michele

Troy and Michele

New member
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Posts
2
Location
Oviedo, FL
We just picked up our 5th wheel last week and went out this weekend to break it in.  Or should I say be broken in.
Everything worked great until Michele tried to use the hot water.
We were hokked up to the park hookup, the cold water was running great as it should have, but all we could get out of the hot tap was cold water.
I called the dealer and went through several troubleshooting steps, to include the valves in the back set in line. 
Now what's funny is when I turned off the city water and ran the fresh water tank, turning on the water pump, we had sporadic hot water.
The HW tank was full of hot water as I was able to test by way of pulling on the pressure relief valve.  Sculding hot.
The HW runs on LP or electric, so naturally I was running off the hookup.

I still can't figure this out.  I went through every manual I could find that even had the word hot water heater to no avail.

Did I miss something.  Is there a check list for this as well.
Someone said it may be the check valve.  But why wouldn't it work with the city water?

I thought of taking the service advisors suggestion and drilling out the check valve, but decided against it.
I had a pressure fitting adapter on the inlet from the city water, could this have been reducing the pressure from the supply preventing it from reaching enough pressure to pull the water through the check valve?
 
Sounds to me like you missed a valve.

The hot water bypass consists of (Hopefully) three valves.  You have them all turned "on" (Open) the  If you look at the valves like a letter H with the hot water heater on top then you will have

One valve on the cross bar---- Close it

Two valves on the uprights above the bar (between the bar and the tank (open these)

And let us know what happens.


Another thing, it can take up to six minutes to fill that tank with water, but in your case, that has been done.
 
You may or may not have a water heater bypass, but if you do, then it may be in the bypass position.  That would explain the lack of hot water while on city water but not why you get some hot water on the internal pump.

The bypass may have 1, 2, or 3 valves, depending on the type of bypass, so don't rely on there being 3 valves involved.  Our bypass is a single lever valve clearly marked as to which position is which.

You have probably also removed the air cushion in the water heater by opening the TPR valve.  Once you get the problem resolved, you should turn off the water heater, let it cool, then turn on the bypass, drain the water heater, replace the drain plug, close the bypass and let the tank refill with fresh water, reestablishing the air cushion in the top of the tank.
 
You can also get this symptom if the shower water taps are on and the water flow shut off at the nozzle/head. Remember you probably have an outside shower too.  Cold water will flow across the valves into the hot side awhen you open another tap elsewjere, displacing the hot water you are expecting to get.  Close the shower valves and the problem disappears.
 
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