Suburban Heating Element Part Number Is Incorrect

[JanAndBill]

According to the book that came with our unit, the Suburban SW12DE water heater requires a electric heating element, part number 520789. I could find stubby little "universal" elements everywhere but no 520789. Finally located one at an RV dealer 30 miles away. When I got there they had the correct part number but it was still almost 2" shorter than mine (my element not including the nut is 91/8" long). Finally called Suburban and found out that the correct part number for the 12 gallon, model SW12DE is 520900. The 520789 is for the the 10 gallon heater, and will work in my 12 gallon unit but the recovery would be much slower. A few calls later I tracked one down and is in route by UPS.

So for those of you with the 12 gallon Suburban Water Heater, you can use most universal elements in a pinch, it will just be a slower recovery. Apparently the 520900 is relatively new and is not carrier by many dealers. In fact several told me they had never seen one like this before.

 

[JanAndBill]

Received the correct element on Friday. For those of you who haven't changed one out, it's a fairly simple process. The only difficult part is removing the old element. All of my sockets large enough, were to thick to fit in the hole that the element is recessed in. I had to use a thin wall element socket which I already had. Problem was it didn't extend out very far, and when the element broke free, the back of the hand took the beating. Other than that it's a simple replacement.