water heater

[janpaul]

The water heater in our 5er is gas or electric. When you have full hookups, should you keep it on gas or electric and why? Also, how much gas do they use? Is gas faster recovery? I have always had electric or boiler in houses, never gas.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

We always use electric when available - the cost of the electric is generally included with the site fee whereas the LP is an additional out of pocket expense. But the heater is not a huge consumer of LPG like the furnace, so the choice is yours.

Most people think that LP is a bit faster recovery than electric, but it will depend on the particular model of heater and the sizes of the burner tube and electric heating element. Most are quite fast either way, but your mileage may vary.  If you want really fast recovery, use both LP and electric at the same time (that's perfectly OK). The heater has separate thermostats for gas and electric and each will cycle under the control of its own t-stat. You may find that the gas mode makes the water slightly hotter - it's common that the gas t-stat maintains a slightly higher temp than the electric one, so the LP burner will stay on slightly longer than the electric, but both will run if you consume a lot of hot water, e.g. take a shower.

 

[janpaul]

That's good to know for showers that I can run both, had no idea. Ours is a 12 gallon and with three gals taking showers, that info will come in handy.

 

[Ned]

The newer Atwood water heaters have one thermostat for both gas and electric, but you can still use either one or the other or both simultaneously.

 

[Karl]

I recently added a Hott Rodd electric heating element to my older, gas only, Suburban heater. It came with a very nice thermostat, but installation of it would have required major surgery, so I wired it to the existing thermostat. Took a few diodes and a relay, but now they both work independently or together at the same temperature. 

 

[Ned]

That's basically how the new Atwoods are wired.  The wall switches just control the 12VDC to the relays for gas or electric with the common thermostat.  Took a bit of creative rewiring when we replaced ours last spring to keep the old 120VAC wall switch functional.

 

[Carl L]

The water heater in our 5er is gas or electric. When you have full hookups, should you keep it on gas or electric and why? Also, how much gas do they use? Is gas faster recovery? I have always had electric or boiler in houses, never gas.

Like the other folks have said, the electricity is paid for in your site rental, propane is not.  However, there is one exception:  If your unit is a 30 amp rig and you are running the A/C on a hot, humid day, and the shore power voltage is getting low, you may want to run that heater on propane only...and for that matter, the fridge on propane only also. 

 

[mamestra]

Since I'm thinking of adding a Hot Rodd to our hot water tank, I'm curious about why it needs "major surgery". I thought that the sensor (thermostat) just attached to the tank.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

I believe the Hott Rod thermostat attaches to the side of the tank, which would be a pain to get at on many rigs. There are other brands of add-on heaters that attach a sensor to the PT valve drain and that is much simpler.  They seem to work fine - I had one on a fifth wheel we had some years ago.

The Lightning Rodd used to be one such and I think it still is. Lightning Rodd

 

[Karl]

Mamestra,

My water heater is mounted in a separate compartment, surrounded by heavy gauge sheet metal. It would have required cutting an access panel through it and the outer skin of the heater itself, to install the thermostat. There was virtually no room to make the necessary cuts and even if it could have been done, I would have had to fashion some sort of access panel to get at the thermostat heat setting screw and the circuit breaker reset button. Assuming all of that could have been done, it still would have required running 120VAC through the wall to a convenient place inside the coach, or a pair of smaller wires to activate a 12VDC relay not provided) to switch it on and off. I decided it could be done much easier by putting a relay in a small box outside, along with a toggle switch to go from propane to electric or both, and add a diode to be able to utilize the existing heater switch inside the coach  and thermostat to control them both. Yes, I have to go outside to select the heat source(s) I want to use, but don't have to do that very often. When boondocking, it stays on propane only, when hooked up to shore power it stays on electric only, or I switch to both if I plan on doing several loads of laundry and need faster recovery times.