Need help with water heater please

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niagprem

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Apr 10, 2016
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After electricians were upgrading electric in campground my water heater no longer works, maybe just coincidence?

Water heater is Atwood Elec/Propane with electronic ignitor less than two years old.

Was using electric to heat and had shower earlier in the day. Power was off and on in park all day long as electricians are doing upgrade in the park.

Now, no hot water from electric but I can hear electrical hum at heater. When I switch to propane I can hear the ignitor and friend verified there is good spark, but propane heater also does not work. Was no problem previously.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Dean
 
niagprem said:
After electricians were upgrading electric in campground my water heater no longer works, maybe just coincidence?
Water heater is Atwood Elec/Propane with electronic ignitor less than two years old.
Was using electric to heat and had shower earlier in the day. Power was off and on in park all day long as electricians are doing upgrade in the park.
Now, no hot water from electric but I can hear electrical hum at heater. When I switch to propane I can hear the ignitor and friend verified there is good spark, but propane heater also does not work. Was no problem previously.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Dean
Click to expand...

It may be something simple like corroded contacts in you wires to the circuit board. Try disconnecting every one of the wires going to the board (one at a time) and clean them. Using a pencil eraser works good. Then plug them back in several times to clean the part of the contact you can't get with the eraser.
How old is your battery?
Has anyone else around you have this problem?
 
Unlikely the park repairs are related to your problem.

Your description suggests you may have two separate problems, but more investigation is needed. First, though, please verify that "not working" means you get water from all the hot faucets but it is room temperature (at all of them). If any are hot or even somewhat warm, please let us know. Please confirm this, one way or the other.

With the electric power on for at least 15 minutes, go outside and open the heater access door and cautiously feel the  Pressure Relief valve near the top front. If it is hot, the heater is heating.  If not, we need to figure out why.  You say you hear/sense a hum, so it's probably heating.
In the photo attached, the Pressure Relief valve is the brass spigot near the top-center, just below the "oo" in Atwood.
 

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Thanks for suggestions guys.
Water is not hot at any facet (all switches have been triple checked to be on)
Pressure relief valve is not warm
all connections cleaned
Fuse at water heater into thermostat removed and visually checked and appears to be fine.

No hot water from Electric and propane will not start. Everything worked fine yesterday morning.

Dean
 
try turning off the breaker for the hot water heater and see if it resets......
 
niagprem said:
Thanks for suggestions guys.
Water is not hot at any facet (all switches have been triple checked to be on)
Pressure relief valve is not warm
all connections cleaned
Fuse at water heater into thermostat removed and visually checked and appears to be fine.

No hot water from Electric and propane will not start. Everything worked fine yesterday morning.

Dean
Click to expand...

Visually checked?  It looks like a diode and you can't see through it.  You need an ohmmeter.  If it reads 0 ohms it's good. 

It's job is to keep the box from overheating in the event of a flashback in the burner tube.  Mine blows when I use both AC and gas in an attempt to get hot water quicker.  Done that lately?
 
Hey Everyone, I'm having a very similar issue with my Atwood Elec/Propane water heater. However, my propane still works perfectly. The electric doesn't work and I'm trying to see what all I can rule out.

When the 110V switch is on, I can hear the high pitched "humming" coming from the hot water heater but it never gets hot. I've checked all sources of hot water after about an hour of it being turned on, including the pressure release valve. They are all cold. I've checked the continuity of the 2 amp fuse on the base of the circuit board, it checks out fine. I've even gone so far as to swapping the circuit board with a friend's (whose electric water heater works) and it still wont heat with his circuit board either. The batteries are reading 13V each (just curious, would weak batteries be a factor even if you're plugged in to a 30amp site?)

Have I ruled out everything other than a faulty heating element or is there more I can look into? I'm not wanting to yank the tank out to replace the element, especially on a 2 year old tank.
Thanks!

Kevin
 
The heater circuit board uses 12v, but it doesn't care if it comes from battery or the RV' converter/charger (which runs when shore power is present). If the propane mode works, the circuit board has sufficient 12v power.

The heater element itself is silent, but sometimes the water boiling around it makes a sort of hum. That sound usually means it is working, but its inference rather than evidence. An ohms (resistance) measurement across the terminals of the element is the most reliable test. Or amps (current) in the 120v line to or from it, if you can get at that.
 
Don't know how old battery is but I am plugged into 30 amp outlet. Everything was fine before.

Is there any chance the ECO/Thermo cut off has been triggered and needs to be replaced?

Thanks, Dean
 
Well if you can get to the back of your heater you can see if there is voltage to it and also if there is an open circuit on the elemen.
Hopefully  you never ran the ac heater whilst the tank was empty??
 
niagprem said:
Don't know how old battery is but I am plugged into 30 amp outlet. Everything was fine before.

Is there any chance the ECO/Thermo cut off has been triggered and needs to be replaced?

Thanks, Dean
Click to expand...

NO. no chance of htat Dean. IF THE ECO (Emerrgecy cut out) trips you get a FAULT light (Normal if you winterize properly and fail to de-winterize properly.... Instructions say to disconnect one of the RED wires from the ECO when you drain the tank)  Also the ECO is a common thermostat it self-resets when cold.

Suspect list is basically the control board. and battery

Symptoms that mean something.
Tank is cold (Normally I'd suspect bypass valves but not if the tank is cold.. UNLESS the tank is empty. I assume it is not since no reason for it to be)

YOu hear a sound (humming) I do not hear any hum from my Atwood. the relay (Which is at the "Back" or inside of the tank) is a DC part, should not hum. But this may indicate a different issue and the element in the tank, I've never herd hum. HISS yes but no hum.

Propane ignights.. So.. what does it do after.. Does it shut down, re-try, shut down (3 times) then fire up the FAULT light?

Hum... You may have damaged the converter..

To test. Measure battery voltage. 13.6 (Converter on) Turn OFF converter (Turn off CONV breaker) Now measure battery voltage 12.5 or better is good. Try Water heater.
 
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