Water Heater

[Jennalee]

Hey guys, I’m need to this forum. Single lady, full time RV living. I’m in East Texas and the weather is crazy. That said, I’m on a property with well water. Yesterday the well froze and I lost water to my camper. I turned the water heater off after this happened as instructed to be on the safe side. They were able to get the well working and after I had water again I turned my water heater back on. An hour later I used hot water to shower and do laundry. I didn’t use any more hot water the rest of the day. Fast forward to today and I have no hot water. We have been leaving our water running bc temps are below freezing. It’s 2 degrees today. I have cold water but the hot water tap gives me nothing. Not even cold or lukewarm water. Just nothing. I looked up as much as I can and cannot figure it out. My water heater is under the camper and I’ve had a heat lamp nearby for several days. Any suggestions? I’ve read about the valves but none of that has been messed with this far. I appreciate any help as I can’t get anyone out here right now. The roads won’t allow it. Thanks a bunch.

 

[Mark_K5LXP]

The water heater input and output lines may have frozen. If you have access to the tank lines you could disconnect them and figure out which one but unless you have some means to thaw them out it may be an exercise in futility. If you don't anticipate running your water heater I'd consider draining it. It's insulated and may not freeze for a while but at these temps everything will reach freezing temperature eventually unless it's in heated space.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Agree with Mark - the cold water feed to the heater tank is probably frozen. If there is no incoming water, there is no pressure to push the heated tank water to the tap. It's ok to leave the heater on as long as there is water in it, so it's safe unless you open the tank drain. It should thaw eventually.

 

[Great Horned Owl]

You could try thawing the inlet line with a hair dryer.

Joel

 

[John From Detroit]

So long as there is water in the heater I would not turn it off in freezing weather. IF I planned to turn it off I'd drain it.. or to be more precise I did drain it

 

[Rene T]

There is something else that could be causing your issue.

1st, how many valves do you have to operate to bypass the water heater?

If you have 3 valves, shut the valves on the inlet and outlet pipes and open up the bypass valve. With this valve line up, you should get cold water out of your hot water faucets. If you get water, the line is not frozen.

If your bypass system only has one or two valves, then you would have a check valve on the outlet pipe (the top pipe). Your issue could be caused by that check valve failing and it will not allow hot water to pass (which is very common) through it.

Some bypass systems also have a check valve on the inlet pipe also.

 

[Jennalee]

Thanks so very much everyone for the comments. And yes, the cold water line to the water heater was frozen. I moved the heat lamp closer to the lines and made a makeshift barrier by stapling heavy duty plastic to the area around it to keep at least some of the heat in. It took a couple of hours but it finally did the trick. I have hot water again.

 

[Rene T]

That’s awesome. Thanks for getting back to us.