ATF: Bighorn - Heating Hot Water

[lizzymit]

Recently another RV owner told me that when he needs hot water quickly after relocating to a new site he turns on BOTH the electric and propane switches to the hot water heater.

Seems like it would work, but is this an acceptable practice?

Thanks for your input

 

[donr827]

We have done the same thing. No problems for the hot water heater.
Don

 

[linuxkidd]

On my Landmark, the setpoints for the gas and electric sections of the water heater were set as follows:

( Temperature is along the vertical scale)

Hotter
/\
| Propane Shutoff
| Elect Shutoff
|
|
|
| Elect Cut-on
| Propane Cut-on
\/
Cooler

With this setup, normal operation would have the electric maintaining normal operating temperature for the hot water (saving your propane). If however, there was a higher hot water demand (i.e. a Shower), the propane would kick in and then turn off higher than the electric, thus giving a much quicker recovery since both propane and electric were on for the bulk of the recovery period.

In this config, our 10 (maybe 12) gallon water heater would recover in about 12 to 15 minutes. We left our Water Heater set with both on all the time when we were on our home site, only alternating when on the road based on availability of propane or electric supply.

Hope this helps,
LK

 

[Invizatu]

George Carlin (RIP) would have to ask about your subject title for this thread... Why do you need to heat hot water?