By pass water heater

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Coopster8

Coopster8

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 10, 2017
Posts
47
Hello, i just recently purchased a 5th wheel, but the owner didnt know much on it.. that make 2 of us, since i had a bumper pull.. so the 1st time i took it out. I found out that my water heater wasnt working, it would give me about 10 sec of hot h20, then get cold again. I oms checked my heating element, and it tested good. After 3 days without hot h20, it was time to go back home. Not for that reason, it was just time to go back to work. So i thought i would check to see if it was winterized. Well im not sure it is or not since its not like my bumper pull.. can someone help me with this.. here is how the water heater switches are set up. I think its wrong but not sure
 

Attachments

  • imagejpeg.jpg
    imagejpeg.jpg
    32.6 KB · Views: 100
Welcome to the forum.

First make and  model of heater.

Next, if you have a outside shower and even inside shower, make sure the water valves are shut off and not at the shower head/wand.

Is it the same at all the faucets?

Are you sure the tank is full. While the system is pressurized, open the pressure/temperature valve which is located on the outside of the RV behind the access door. It's in the upper right hand corner. Do it when the water has cooled.

Or you can pull the heater drain valve and pressurize the system. If it's in bypass mode, you won't get any water out of the drain hole. If it's in normal mode, you'll get plenty of water.

Looking at the picture, it's hard to say if it's positioned correctly. On mine, when the knob is horizontal, it's in bypass and when it's pointing down, it's in normal position.
 
Thank you
I think its an atwood 10 gal.
Yes i have an inside and outside shower, both are turned off at the rough(valves)
Yes at all faucets.
I will try what you said, next week when we go again
The only way those turn is the position its in or to the left..

 
As far as 5W vs bumper pull (travel trailer), the water heaters and the bypass & winterization procedures are the same, with no more difference than there might be between any two manufacturers or even model years from the same manufacturer.

Since you get some hot water, you know the heater tank isn't turned off or bypassed. Your problem is that cold water is flowing more readily than hot. There are a couple common reasons for this:

1. A hot/cold mixing valve is open, e.g. the shower valve Rene mentioned
2. A sticking check valve at the heater outlet
3. A defective or partially open heater bypass valve

#1 and #3 are mostly a matter of opening and closing the relevant valves/faucets to make sure they are really closed. A defective valve is possible, but not very common.

#2 applies when you have a single valve bypass system. The check valve can get sticky when hard water salts clog up the valve and that will allow cold water to flow where it should not. The check valve is usually right in the tank exit fitting and not very visible.

Agree that the valve pointers in the picture do not appear to match what the labels say, but I've seen that problem before in my own coach (different brand than yours). The worker who installed the valve apparently didn't line it up the same way the guy who made up the labels had in mind.
 
Ok.. ill try anything before i take it to the shop.. going to try full timing so need to fix it. My bumper pull, had the values inside next to water, this is on the outside in the cabinet, so im learning as much as i can about this 5th wheel.. keystone challer 2009,
 
Welcome to the Forum!

To me, it appears these are quarter turn valves, and the labels are confusing.  As I read the label,  the valve should have the handle pointing to 9 o'clock to be ON and pointing to 6 o'clock to be OFF.  However, as installed, the two positions are 12 o'clock and 9 o'clock??

Follow Rene's suggestion to determine which position is which!
 
Thank all, i did what rena said and it works great now.. woo hoo hot water?
 
Coopster8 said:
Thank all, i did what rena said and it works great now.. woo hoo hot water?
Click to expand...

That's awesome. Glad we could help and thanks for getting back to us. So the original problem was that the bypass valves were not positioned correctly. Is that right?
 
Rene T said:
That's awesome. Glad we could help and thanks for getting back to us. So the original problem was that the bypass valves were not positioned correctly. Is that right?
Click to expand...
Glad you got him fixed up Rene.  I had somewhat of a similar problem until I figured out that those little valve handles can be pulled off and put back on in the wrong position.  This the PO had done for me.  If his were correct it looks like the water heater was in bypass explaining the lack of hot water.  Anyway, he is good so all is good.

Me, the experienced RVer hooked up my pump backwards to inject winterizing fluid and put a gallon on the floor of the compartment before I figured it out.  So years of experience made no difference.

Bill
 
Yep, rene i did what you said and the switches should of been in on and off not both off.. strange way to say it on the panel, but by pass is now on, and winterize is off.. in Florida you dont winterize to much?
 
Coopster8 said:
Yep, rene i did what you said and the switches should of been in on and off not both off.. strange way to say it on the panel, but by pass is now on, and winterize is off.. in Florida you dont winterize to much?
Click to expand...

I hope you didn't try to make hot water with the 110 Volt side of the heater with the tank empty. If you did, the chances are good that the element is bad now. If that's the case, let us know and we can walk you through on what to do. It's not hard to fix.
 
The strangest thing I saw was the by pass valve closed, the outlet closed, the inlet open.

With this combo the water heater would fill with water through the inlet and compress the air in the tank, you would get hot water until the compressed air pushed the heated water out, then it ran cold again.

When you turned off the hot water the cycle started again. You did not notice it with small volumes of hot water, but if you did dishes it was obvious.

Fortunately, we discovered it on the first day  of the first trip.

On our water heater if the valve handle is across the pipe it is off, if the valve handle is parallel to the pipe it is on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 995 (members: 8, guests: 987)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,981
Posts
1,388,590
Members
137,726
Latest member
CampMike2270
Back
Top Bottom