Water Heater & Furnace

[Scorn]

I am getting ready to winterize my camper but my wife needs to clean a little first.

Can I run the furnace ever though I have drained the Water Heater?

When I turn the electric on the hot water heater runs and I since I have drained it I don't want it to burn up.

Please advise.

[instymp]

don't turn the hot water heater on if it is empty. it will burn up

[LZScout]

There are two switches for the water heater, one that turns the electric element on and one that turns the gas igniter on. Location depends on model. On my Alpine, the electric switch is on the face of the water heater and the gas switch is mounted in the control panel. If both are off, it won't operate if you're running the furnace.


Sent from my iPhone

[LZScout]

You can see the electric switch on the face of the water heater above.



The gas switch with red activity light shows in the photo above.


Sent from my iPhone

[Festus2]

The small, black rocker switch as shown in LZScout's photo should have been to the OFF position BEFORE you drained your tank and then turned on the electricity from inside. If the switch was left ON, you have probably burned out the heating element. Unless you had turned it off at the tank, there would still be 110v available to your heater.

Note that not all HW have such an exterior tank-mounted switch so I would check yours to see if it does. You may be able to control the 110v directly from inside your unit from a wall-mounted switch. This rocker switch is on the outside and is located at the bottom left- hand corner of the HW tank.

[hankpage]

Turn off the circuit breaker marked "Water Heater". and the rocker switch on the heater itself. Gas will still operate so keep interior wall switch off. Furnace has nothing to do with water heater. It is hot air not a boiler.

[Scorn]

Originally Posted by hankpage

Turn off the circuit breaker marked "Water Heater". and the rocker switch on the heater itself. Gas will still operate so keep interior wall switch off. Furnace has nothing to do with water heater. It is hot air not a boiler.

Mine does not have a switch on the outside but I did pull the fuse on the inside. Fortunately when I open the water heater valve about a gallon of water still came out. I will upload a picture later. I noticed the two switches on the wall for the water heater and I turned them off after the heater came on for about a minute this morning.