Turning on hot water heater

[drdave]

If you have your HWH turned on in the driveway then you will be at the least heating water you do not need (unless you plan on taking showers or doing dishes in your driveway), is hard on the heating element to run continuously for no reason, and if your HWH is empty or only partially full of water it can damage the heating element.  

[charliem]

[font size="3"]Just wasting energy and $$$, Joan. 
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[gbpack]

Thanks. That's what Gregg said, but I wanted to be sure there wasn't something we hadn't considered.

[furpod]

On a side note.. I have left mine on in the driveway before for the whole season... my electric bill suffered no noticeable change. I didn't do it on purpose.  

[gbpack]

FYI, I called Livin Lite yesterday and spoke with Don N. in the warranty department about the lack of an interior red water heater switch. He said that they discontinued using these switches recently because of the manufacturer's recommendation. The manufacturer of the water heater was at their factory recently and they were reviewing everything together related to the water heater. The mfg'r questioned LL's use of the interior switch saying that it was redundant and confusing to some campers/owners because of the need to coordinate both switches in order to operate the electric side of the WH. So they made the decision to discontinue using those switches. That was Don's explanation of it, but I think it was a cost-cutting measure as well. I told him that having the switch was both a safety measure and convenience for the owners who have them and that they had no problem using them. I didn't get much of a response from him on that. So I guess we (Joan & I) will have to decide whether or not we want to have the dealer try to retrofit one into our trailer.

[mitch]

Redundant yes, confusing I call BS.  Who wants to have to go outside, open up the water heater cover, flip the switch and put the cover back on.  If anything people would always leave the outside switch on and completely control it from the nice, lighted, inside switch.    

[charliem]

[font size="3"]That's pure bunk, but it is imaginative. Blame it on Suburban. The only confusion occurs when LL fails to label the switch. Confusion also occurs when I have to crawl on the floor to figure out which breaker runs the WH. Customers 0, bean counters +5.

Now LL should have a surplus of surface mount switches so you might be able to get one. It looks like they used a surface mount switch in the thin wall between kitchen and bunks in the BHS. As I said previously, the hardest part will be running the wire. Hopefully it can be done easily. There is no hard reason why it must be on that wall. Good luck.
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[montedtrotter1]

I finally found that damn on off switch inside the hot water heater panel outside the trailer. I could only see two reset buttons but not the of off switch. When we got home I called Sunny Island and asked them about it. Yes there is a switch there, mine was covered by a silver piece of tape and I found it looking one more time. it is on the lower left-hand side of the outside hot water heater panel. One thing I discovered on our last trip is propane will heat the water for a shower in about 5 minutes. I was told to heat the water with propane then turn off the propane switch and turn on electric switch. We did this but water was cold in ghe morning. Now that I have found the switch, our guy at Sunny Island told me to turn the switch on and then turn off the HWH via the fuse panel inside the trialer when not in use. We have had the trailer 10 months, 10 trips, 6000 miles and still learning about how thing work!

[charliem]

[quote source="/post/18765/thread" timestamp="1455675288" author="@montedtrotter1"]Now that I have found the switch, our guy at Sunny Island told me to turn the switch on and then turn off the HWH via the fuse panel inside the trialer when not in use.
[/quote][font size="3"]I'm a bit confused. I thought from your previous post you had the red lighted switch inside the trailer on the wall. If so you don't have to use the breaker in the power panel at all. For daily on/off operation just turn off the lighted switch. When you store and drain the heater it's a good idea to turn off EITHER the outside switch or the circuit breaker just to remind yourself to refill the WH.


BTW, I measured the recovery time for my WH. I'll quote from my RPOD forum post:

Electric only recovery: 35 minutes
Gas plus electric recovery: 14 minutes

This was measured with 77 degree F cold water input and a resulting hot water temperature of 131F. The gas only recovery time was not measured, but would be around 23 minutes. Note that recovery time is dependent on may factors including cold water input temperature, how much warm water is left in the heater when you start recovering and, secondarily, the outside air temperature.

One of the benefits of the dual mode heater is recovering in half the time.
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[montedtrotter1]

Charlie, yes we have the red light switch inside our trailer and it would light up red when turned on but did not heat any water. You told us about the switch inside the HWH panel on the back right side of the trailer. I looked several times after reading this forum and did not see it. It was only after the third time of reviewing the forum that I again looked and discovered the switch under a piece of silver tape.

I had called SIRV where we purchased the trailer to make sure we had the switch you talked about. It was a little confusing to me as well about using the breaker but I asked Steve why the switch was in the panel on back of the trailer in the first place. I suggested it was due to owners leaving the inside switch on when no water was in the HWH tank and burning out the element, especially when new (your comment above)?  That is when he made the comment that I did not have to turn off the outside switch (once on) to prevent burning up the element if no water was in the tank. Just flip the breaker off inside the trailer to make sure when restarting the HWH there is water inside. I know by bride has flipped the electric switch on several times (before checking to make sure there is water in the tank) because it is near the pump switch. Actually I thought we had burned up the element because it did not work and much relieved when the propane side heated water. Anyway, the plan going forward is to initially heat with propane for 15-20 minutes, then turn propane off and switch electric on to keep water hot. I have not checked temperatures of propane heated water vs electric heated water but another forum indicated propane heated water was hotter than electric heated water, but the electric mode of heating water would do a good job of keeping the propane heated water hot. Kinda confusing huh! Well now I read that LL is removing the outside switch due to customer confusion.

Regarding hot water recovery, we forgot to turn on the HWH last week in Florida (temp about 40) and I wanted to take a shower. I checked for any hot water and zero, flipped on the propane and had enough in 5 or so minutes to take a shower, I was very impressed. Now that the electric switch will work I will check this out. Way more info than folks want to know on this issue but we have had our trailer for almost a year now and still figuring out how things work!

Thanks for your comments!

[charliem]

Charlie, yes we have the red light switch inside our trailer and it would light up red when turned on but did not heat any water. You told us about the switch inside the HWH panel on the back right side of the trailer. I looked several times after reading this forum and did not see it. It was only after the third time of reviewing the forum that I again looked and discovered the switch under a piece of silver tape.

I had called SIRV where we purchased the trailer to make sure we had the switch you talked about. It was a little confusing to me as well about using the breaker but I asked Steve why the switch was in the panel on back of the trailer in the first place. I suggested it was due to owners leaving the inside switch on when no water was in the HWH tank and burning out the element, especially when new (your comment above)?  That is when he made the comment that I did not have to turn off the outside switch (once on) to prevent burning up the element if no water was in the tank. Just flip the breaker off inside the trailer to make sure when restarting the HWH there is water inside. I know by bride has flipped the electric switch on several times (before checking to make sure there is water in the tank) because it is near the pump switch. Actually I thought we had burned up the element because it did not work and much relieved when the propane side heated water. Anyway, the plan going forward is to initially heat with propane for 15-20 minutes, then turn propane off and switch electric on to keep water hot. I have not checked temperatures of propane heated water vs electric heated water but another forum indicated propane heated water was hotter than electric heated water, but the electric mode of heating water would do a good job of keeping the propane heated water hot. Kinda confusing huh! Well now I read that LL is removing the outside switch due to customer confusion.

Regarding hot water recovery, we forgot to turn on the HWH last week in Florida (temp about 40) and I wanted to take a shower. I checked for any hot water and zero, flipped on the propane and had enough in 5 or so minutes to take a shower, I was very impressed. Now that the electric switch will work I will check this out. Way more info than folks want to know on this issue but we have had our trailer for almost a year now and still figuring out how things work!

Thanks for your comments!

[font size="3"]MonteD,

Sounds like you have a plan. Flipping either the outside or breaker off at season's end is just good practice for your peace of mind. As my memory ages I'm thinking I should do both.     As for gas vs electric, the gas heater is about 50% more powerful than the electric, but they both heat to the same end temperature. Both thermostats are set to 130F. In practice the electric has a slight priority over the gas so the electric will maintain the temperature and the gas will not come on until the tank is well depleted. Most people probably just leave both on and never think about it. The gas will heat faster than electric alone, but using both will heat even faster. [/font]