WATER HEATER PROBLEM - Fiberglass RV
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Old 09-10-2006, 09:45 PM   #1
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When leaving the campground this afternoon, one of the other campers mentioned to me that my outside vent to the water heater had smoke on it. Sure enough, the water heater had to have overheated and smoke had to have been coming out the vent. Luckily the Casita is not a fried one, but just has a scorch mark above the vent.
I am wondering if anyone else has ever had this happen???
I suppose I will need to take camper in for repair at Camping world, but just wondering if anyone else has had the problem.
Thanks
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Old 09-11-2006, 08:23 AM   #2
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Karalyn, It sounds like the tank was not completely full of water when you started the heat up. when you plug your hose up, go turn on the hot water in the sink till spitting is done and it will relieve the pressure in the tank and fill the tank at the same time by replacing the air with water. Try that when you get home and then get a lawn chair, a good book and sit within site of the heater and see if it smokes. If it does then take it to the rv place, that way way it will save you some money from them checking it out.
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Old 09-11-2006, 08:58 AM   #3
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A mal adjusted gas/air mixture will produce very black suit that will exit the heater and blacken up the side of the egg.

1. Look to see if your flame is YELLOW (Yellow is bad) and if so, do the following:
2. Clean out the tube that goes from where the gas enters to where it burns. Use a small round brush that will bend around the corner.
3. Adjust the air mixture thingamajig to the point where you get a nice blue flame, (Blue is good).

The airmixturethingamajig is round with 3 or 4 triangle slots cut into it or it may be a door that slides over an opening in another round tube and you move it so you will either get more air or less air.

Opening it up will allow more air to mix with the gas and closing it up will allow less. The same airmixturethingamajig is on your propane bar-b-q grill for each gas valve and should be on each gas valve of your counter top propane stove inside the camper.

The triangle type is modt often on the BBQ and Cook Top burners and the Slide typt on water heaters.

If you feel uncomfortable messing with the gas, get some assistance from someone.
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Old 09-13-2006, 06:36 AM   #4
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Perhaps the hot water heater problem is related to the shower shut down problem you had in another post.
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Old 09-13-2006, 09:08 AM   #5
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Hmmm, hey Bill, not too sure that that is what happened. The Casita has a cut-off feature which will shut down the heater if there is no water in the tank. At least our 2002 model does. It is possible it may have malfunctioned though. If there is no water in the tank and one tries to light the heater, the cut-off switch shuts it down, the only way to restart is to depress the reset button. That reset button is in the black area on the tank face, and is merely a small depression, so is easy to overlook. One should always make sure the by-pass valve is in the up and down configuration before hooking up to a water supply, that before lighting the heater. If there were smoke evidence by the vent, personally, I would take the trailer down to an rv shop and let someone with experience determine the problem and fix it.
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Old 09-16-2006, 12:18 PM   #6
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I started up the heater again last night and it seems to be running ok. There is a little bit of yellow in the blue flame (not much and not continual), but it is shutting down when it should. I will be watching it over the weekend. Maybe a cleaning is in order.
I sure do appreciate all the answers. The vent is putting out HOT heat when on, but it does shut down when the tank is heated. I think having the tank set to low instead of medium is a plus. I am scheduled to take it to Camping World on Wednesday afternoon to have it checked out.
So far no soot coming out. I will let you know what happens over the next day. It was weird!
I did NOT clear out the air in the tank when turning on the hot water heater. I never thought to do that. I did not realize that could be a problem, so I have done that this weekend. There was a LOT of air in the line at first.
Keeping my fingers crossed all will be ok.
THANKS FOR ALL THE ANSWERS.
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Old 09-16-2006, 09:38 PM   #7
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I had the water heater going all day, and ran all the hot water out of it twice. No more soot, but I do feel that the water heater is heating to hot. I am taking it in for repair on Wednesday. I would feel better having someone that knows something about it take a look at it. I don't think the egg above the heater vet should be HOT. Better to be safe than sorry. Will let you all know what I find out.
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Old 09-21-2006, 09:13 PM   #8
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I took the camper in for repair yesterday, and it did need servicing. Hopefully it will work lots better this weekend.
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