Water Heater

[staciembrewer]

Can someone please help?! Just moved into our new Road Warrior and the water heater is not working. We tried the electric and propane operations at the control panel inside, however, neither one is heating up the water. Is there another switch or valve of some kind that we need to flip for first time use? I would really like a hot shower tonight! Thanks,


Stacie

 

[cookie]

Welcome to this great forum Staciembrewer.
Be sure that you have 12 volts from your battery.
Check the battery cut off switch and the fuses.

Peace
Dave

Sent from my awesome Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk

 

[danemayer]

Hi staciembrewer,

Maybe the water heater is in the "bypass" mode from having been winterized. In bypass mode, cold water flows through both cold and hot faucets because there's no water in the water heater tank. If this is a new rig, given the time of year it's a pretty good bet that's the case.

The bad news is that if you've had the electric element turned on with no water in the tank, you may have burned out the heating element.

Here's a link to our owner-written Water Systems Guide. Page 24 covers the 2 types of water heater bypass controls. If you have the 2nd type, individual valves, you may find them behind the rear basement storage wall, close to the water heater.

 

[JanAndBill]

As Dan stated, if you operated the electric water heater with no water inside, you fried the element. Been there, done that, it doesn't take but just a little bit to do it. The good news is it's not that hard to change. FYI: if you have a the 12 gal tank, Suburban made a change in the element, and I'm not sure if they've every updated the owners manual. The correct element is longer for a quicker recovery, the universal element will work just not as fast. The correct partnumber for the 12 gallon, model SW12DE is 520900.

 

[staciembrewer]

Thank you everyone for the great advice. My husband finally found the bypass switch and I was able to have a hot shower this morning. Luckily my heating element was not fried.

 

[thisis4me.ed]

Atwood electric sometimes uses a switch on back of tank or a remote Pana switch check . I 10gal tank and sti) no hot stuff chec ( the back of tank black box has a new service repair kit 93849...