Newbies at RV'n and having issues with Atwood heating systems

[Belle]

Hi all!!! I'm so relieved and thrilled there is a place like this to seek help from others who rv.
So my bf and I moved into our rv this year in June, and we've had a few problems.. we have no hot water, and we honestly don't even know which way the switches are on and which way is off, (as sad as that sounds)... does the little "o" shaped symbol mean they're off? And like, what actually do we do to figure out the hot water situation?? BTW we are in a long term park, where we are hooked up to electricity

 

[TonyL]

To be able to help, we need to know what RV you have, and some pictures of any water heater switches would be a great help.

 

[Rene T]

Welcome to the forum.
Have you met any of your neighbors yet? If you have, reach out to them for help. Rv’ers are always willing to help out a fellow rv’er.

 

[Larry N.]

does the little "o" shaped symbol mean they're off?

If it's kinda an O and seems to have a 1 in the middle of it, that's one of the "universal" symbols for labeling a power switch. They chose a combined 0 and 1 because that's a binary (computer) on/off indication. And as Tony indicates more information, such as pictures of the switches and what you have for an RV, would let us help you more.

And Rene's suggestion of talking to your neighbors can sometimes help, too.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

On switches with those binary labels, 0 = Off and 1 = On. Push the "1" to turn it on.

Most Atwwood heaters will have two switches, one for 120v heating mode and one for LP gas mode. Both can be used at the same time if desired - the water heats faster when both heaters are working.

Does yours look similar to this?

Atwood/Dometic Water Heater Power Switch - Gas/Electric - 91230 - United RV

Product Description: 91230 Compatibility: Atwood LP Gas/ Electric Water Heaters 91230 Type: Wall Mount Voltage Rating: 12 Volt DC Color:...

parts.unitedrv.com

 

[Larry N.]

I forgot about the switches like Gary pictured. The type I was thinking of looks like this:

OR THIS

 

[Belle]

Hey guy it's, I'm not even Sure what type of system it is. I'll take a picture of our panel. And we are in a paradise point, Link a 2006 I think I'm not even totally sure. But I will take a picture of the aspects that we have on the wall to tell us about everything that we've got going on in here and I will post it

 

[Belle]

On switches with those binary labels, 0 = Off and 1 = On. Push the "1" to turn it on.

Most Atwwood heaters will have two switches, one for 120v heating mode and one for LP gas mode. Both can be used at the same time if desired - the water heats faster when both heaters are working.

Does yours look similar to this?

Atwood/Dometic Water Heater Power Switch - Gas/Electric - 91230 - United RV

Product Description: 91230 Compatibility: Atwood LP Gas/ Electric Water Heaters 91230 Type: Wall Mount Voltage Rating: 12 Volt DC Color:...

parts.unitedrv.com

Thank you so much. Here are a couple of pictures

 

[Belle]

Also, we actually did get our hot water running, we had read something online saying that if the little red light was going on and off sporadically that it probably was a wiring issue. But we are curious to know if it's not a wiring issue, as we really don't think ours is, that what else it could possibly be causing it to do this,,

 

[Belle]

On switches with those binary labels, 0 = Off and 1 = On. Push the "1" to turn it on.

Most Atwwood heaters will have two switches, one for 120v heating mode and one for LP gas mode. Both can be used at the same time if desired - the water heats faster when both heaters are working.

Does yours look similar to this?

Atwood/Dometic Water Heater Power Switch - Gas/Electric - 91230 - United RV

Product Description: 91230 Compatibility: Atwood LP Gas/ Electric Water Heaters 91230 Type: Wall Mount Voltage Rating: 12 Volt DC Color:...

parts.unitedrv.com

Yes it does,

 

[Belle]

To be able to help, we need to know what RV you have, and some pictures of any water heater switches would be a great help.

 

[Belle]

so we also had a massive (for the lack of better terms) BLOW UP/ELECTRIC-FRY/100% LOSS OF ALL POWER.... And this was actually my fault it was actually Cameron today and I had turned on the wrong AC unit and I literally blue one that's internal as well as 2 portable ones and we were unable to fix it fairly quickly. We actually had to move the next day and we were in the middle of a 45ﾟC heat wave for well over a week. So that didn't help us at all and we thought we were all going to die lol. But but we did have a friend who is an "electrician"... Who after the entire day We moved and then probably about 4 days after, we were finally able to get the air conditioning up and running again. ( Although it was a cheap magiver fix and it wasn't supposed to be that way and so now the AC unit is not connected to our furniture system) But now our problem is the, is that Winter is literally knocking at the door and we still have no furnish. And we aren't exactly sure why the furnace isn't working. We had gotten the new thermostat but now the furnace doesn't want to engage I can take a few pictures to post on here until you guys can take a gander... And this might be a far stretch, but we are trying desperately to winterize our 5th wheel, but we have been searching and searching for swording and there's supposed to be a good company here in Kamloops call my but we have been calling for weeks To know Avail. So we were just hoping for some advice on if there was anybody living in the interior of British Columbia who may know anywhere that's worthwhile and reasonably priced, or if we should just bite the bullet and go online

 

[Ex-Calif]

Not for nothing but the blue pen markings are backwards.

As of that picture you have electric water heat on and gas off. This explains why you now have hot water, and it's coming from the electric element so that's good news.

Think of ithe switches this way -

I = "Inline"
0 = "Offline"

Also in America when wired right, switch up is on.

The red light is usually denoted as a "fail to light" warning. It should not come on at all when using the electric element. If it comes on when using gas it is indicating that the gas did not light.

The heater will try several startups, so the light could come on once momentarily and then extinguish if the second attempt was successful.

Turn off the electric side ("0") and turn on the gas side ("I") and hove one of you stand by the heater when you do. You should hear "click, click, click" of the ignitor followed by a gas light off. If it doesn't light first time, wait a bit and it should try again.

There could be multiple things happening - just note for us the behavior of the gas side and we can start helping in detail.