water not getting hot?

[stormy2000]

hello again,

hmm our first day with new TT, and things not seems to go as good as we hoped.

other post on weak water pressure, this is on our water heater.

reading the operating manual and well not much info there, and also pertains to the heater manual.

after sanitizing the water system, and well you saw my post on that, we connected the water to the city water connection. we then turned on the water heater (electric), and then turned on the water facet(s)/shower and waited for hot water... and waited .... and waited... finally it got dark and we turned off facets/shower.

will try again tomorrow we guess. any suggestions is helpful.

bill & jodi

[tomsws6]

The water got dark? Just out of couriosity did you have your gas on too? And did you get a DSI fault on your panel?

[hankpage]

You have to wait at least 45 min. before getting warm water while using electric. With gas you will get hot water in less than 10 minutes. If you keep running water from faucets it will never warm up, especially if the incoming water is very cold. On electric only you will run out of hot water unless you take a very quick shower. We use both gas & electric for showers and just electric for the rest of the day. JM2¢, Hank

[SteveC7010]

You should have put the low pressure and the no hot water in a single post because one probably caused the other.

If your water tank was empty or partly empty when you turned on the faucets, the system never had a chance to fill up. And, because the electric heater element appears to have been on before the tank was filled, you most likely killed it. So you never got any hot water.

IMMUTABLE RULE: The water heater tank MUST be full before turning on electric or gas heating. Period. No exceptions. Nlo ifs, ands, or buts.

With the water heater turned off, engage city water pressure, and at one hot water faucet, let the water run until it completely stops spitting and sputtering. Do the same for cold. Shut them off and then go to all the other faucets one at a time and do the same. The water heater is at least 6 gallons so you'll have to wait quite a while on the first hot faucet.

When everything is purged of air, it is safe to turn on the electric or gas for the hot water.

[stormy2000]

the water heater tank must be full? is that a diff tank? we have fresh water tank, 2 grays and 1 black. is there another tank that we have to put water in?

we did our water sanitizing and after draining the fresh tank, we put the hose in the city connection. were we supposed to put it in the water heater tank?

[mhs4771]

Sure sounds like you fried the heating element. If you just connected the water and then turned on the electric and opened a faucet you did a BIG No No. As said above, you need to purge the air out of the system and get the tank filled before applying power to the heater.

[Festus2]

You cannot put a hose into the hot water tank to fill it up. Filling up your HW tank is quite simple. Make sure the HW shut off valve is opened, connect up to city water, and let the system, including the lines and HW tank, fill with water. As mentioned before, open all of your faucets (one pair at a time), get all the air out of the lines, until you have a steady flow of water out of each and every faucet. When you get a steady flow of water from all faucets - and no sputtering or air , the system is completely full of water. NOW you can turn on the HW heater - using gas or electricity.

[CUFFS054]

Stormy,
If you fried the element don't feel bad. I did it twice on my park model! Take heed to to advice the others have posted and if you need help changing the element these guys can help.

[Outbackmel]

Did I miss something?? If so, my apologies...You did go outside and remove the panel cover and pulled the pressure relief valve and water spewed out? right??

Second, generally there are 2 hot water switches: one inside the unit on the control panel, the second and equally important switch is outside tucked away behind the tubing on the wall of the water heater elements and needs to be flipped to "on" as well. This safety feature prevents inadvertantly burning your coils.

[stormy2000]

well no hot water, lots of yelling between us haha, she took off to friends house to shower, came back to camp and the road blocker thing is up so we can't get in : (
hating this trailer/cw/full-timing and its our 1st day!!!

so we are at hotel room, and i got a shower wheww, now then...

we did the water sanitizing ... dumped all water out of system ... connect hose to city water turned on facets, lots of gasping, spurts, no steady stream of water, ...

turned on all facets see if the same .. yep ....

turned on the water heater button (electric), turned on kitchen facet no hot water but have water, and its still intermittent spurting and stuff, not steady ...

and it was like for awhile, got late, dinner time, frustration, yelling and here we are now..
this keystone trailer is the pits ... lesson learned on that ...

bill & jodi

[stormy2000]

and i'm going to take it from the other post that our hot water heater is dead : (
when we get back to camp tomorrow, we'll try hot water again see if any comes out, as we believe we left the heater button on (electric), if no hot water,

will try it on the propane side, now i believe (wife not talking to due no hot water), all have to do is turn off electric button, and go inside and turn on button for heater.

i tried to tell her, we should have got the forest river ... hmmm still not talking ...

pray for miracles : )

bill & jodi (still not talking) see she's me typing this too haha

[Festus2]

Bill & Jodi -
What we have been trying to emphasize is that your HW tank needs to be full of water BEFORE you turn on the electricity to it or try to light it with propane. The spurting and intermittent flow of water from your faucets, indicates that there is still air in the lines and the tank is not full.
How long are you waiting for the lines to purge themselves of air? How long are you waiting for the HW tank to fill?
The procedure that has been outlined in previous posts is very common throughout nearly all trailers and will be the same no matter what make you buy --- Forest River or whatever. If a person doesn't ensure that the HW tank is full before turning on the electricity, then it isn't Keystone's fault that the HW tank isn't producing hot water.

[SteveC7010]

this keystone trailer is the pits ... lesson learned on that ...

I don't think Keystone is at fault at all.

I strongly suspect that a Forest River or a Jayco or a whatever would have the exact same problem.

[mhs4771]

As mentioned by other, Did you turn on the little black rocker switch that is located on the Water Heater it's self?????? You have to remove a little cotter pin first, then push the switch to the on position (again this is done after the tank it full), then you turn on the switch inside the unit and wait. I generally turn ours on the night before a trip so when we reach our stop, turn it back on and doesn't take long reheating the already warm water.

[CUFFS054]

Bill, the water supply where I keep my Springdale has alot of air in it. I always have spurts and coughs when I open a faucet. But prior to firing up the WH when I get there I run the water out of the hot faucet until I know the heater is full of water. Remember you have to displace all of the air in the system to fill it completely.

[stormy2000]

hello,

and well its just after no hot water and the yelling and frustration, we ended up at her friends house to shower since i had nothing on the hot water so ...

but we left hotel this morning and got back to cg and it was open and we got to our trailer and tried a facet and hot water.

thanks for all the info, didn't know at first that we had a water heater tank, at pdi he said we had 1 fh, 2 gray, 1 black tank, and now we know we have a water heater tank.

how do you know when the water heater tank is full? our panel has no check button for that?

do we just hookup water to fh tank or/ city water connection and wait??? for hour or so, and then turn on the water heater electric button? and oh yes we have the rocker switch, turned that on yesterday noon time, it was after we did, nothing happened no hot water, just our facets choking a lot.

and the facets are not choking today.

well if its not the keystone rv, we will def not buy at campingworld again.

bill & jodi

[Festus2]

You will know when your HW tank is full when (a) there is no more spurting or gurgling of water when you open each and every faucet and you get a steady uninterrupted flow of water from both hot and cold taps. At this point, there will be no hot water coming from the HW tap since you haven't applied either electricity or gas to heat the tank.

There is no time limit on how long you wait before lighting the tank. When the conditions outlined above have been met, then it is safe to light the tank.

Unlike your holding tanks, there is no light on any panel to indicate that the HW tank is full. You have to use your eyes and ears when you are filling the tank from your city water connection. Listen to and watch the flow of water coming out of each faucet as you go through them one at a time.

Glad to hear that you now have hot water but I am not sure why it would be Keystone's or Camping World's fault that you didn't before. The tech at CW probably assumed that you knew that there was a hot water tank that came with the unit and because you didn't ask about it, he most likely thought you knew all about it.

Regardless - problem solved.

[SteveC7010]

The water heater is no different than your regular water heater at home. When it is first installed, it has to be filled before it can be turned on. Normally that is just when initially installed and then whenever it is drained for maintenance, etc. Once it is full, you pretty much don't think about it at all.

Since we drain our RV systems more often, we have to remember to let the water heater fill before turning on the heat source (gas or electric.) We know that our heater is filled when the faucets stop spitting and sputtering. Again, once the heater is full, you don't have to think about it unless you have drained the system. The water heater fills by letting enough water into the trailer's system to push all the air out. Your RV water heater is most likely either 6 or 10 gallons so it will take a few minutes for the hot side to stop spitting.

There is no gauge on the water tank. You have to fill the entire water system of the trailer until both the hot and cold faucets stop sputtering.

When the system is full, then you can turn on the water heater and not before.

Several of us have explained this to you in enough different ways that you should be able to understand the whole process.

I am pretty sure Camping World is not at fault either.

[stormy2000]

thanks for info on the water heater, just upset that the first day was ruined due no hot water in this trailer.

and since this is our first TT, would have thought they would go through stuff like that, i would think anyway. can't ask him a question that i don't know to ask.

but thanks again for the info, should make the next time easier.


bill & jodi

[dandjh1958]

We too just picked up our first TT (we also have a popup trailer) and we were asked several times by our dealer if we ever had a travel trailer before.
Since this was our first, they went through absolutely everything, step by step. It helped that we also took a PDI checklist with us and went through it asking any questions.

I would suggest you get a PDI checklist, go through it and then go back to your dealer and ask questions.
Our dealer told us that they would expect questions for the first few times we took out the trailer.

Here's a pretty good checklist and I know there is a couple other ones listed in the forum.

http://changingears.com/rv-checklist-inspection.shtml?sec-checklist

[Roller4Tan]

:banghead:

[stormy2000]

wow very detailed, it had some line items that we didn't even think of. we did not have a good experience with either the sales rep/pdi person so we'd rather not go back there. but we are still looking at the TT see if we missed things.

will keep this one also, and add to the ones we have. thanks for info.


bill & jodi

[CUFFS054]

Some new weirdness with my Suburban DSI water heater. Works great and cycles normally on 120V. Works great and cycles normally on propane (my choice since I've got 120 gal tank). BUT if I try the run 120V and gas(for quick recovery) it will finish the current cycle and at some point trip the Over Limit gas shut-off. However, 120V continues on normally. Any thoughts?

[JRTJH]

Cuff,

Your gas thermostat may well be set lower than your electric thermostat and when it reaches the gas "upper limit" the electric keeps heating the water until it hits the gas "safety cutoff" which disables the gas circuit to prevent overheating while using gas. Both the electric and gas sides have this safety feature to prevent tank overheating but they are independent of each other so if one is too far out of adjustment with the other, it could affect the other system. I don't think there is any adjustment of either system "upper limit switch" other than replacement. Maybe you could adjust your "habits" to include turning off the electric after you no longer need the fast recovery? You should be able to reset the gas side by simply turning off the indoor gas operation switch and then turning it back on after a few minutes. I know that's a pain, but probably better than chasing down electric thermostat reset switches for replacement which possibly won't fix the issue......

John

[CUFFS054]

John, that's what I figured. Service manual states that the two thermos gas/elec are 10 degrees apart but shouldn't be enough to trigger that ECS for the gas side. To reset it I must open the cover and remove the "small black box" cover and then reset the hi-limit gas safety. I think I'll just live with it on gas for now. It does a good job.