Water Heater woes and a fix??

[Fred762]

We just spent 2+ weeks 'docking in a fine northern VT SP in our 2018 Casita Independence Dlx 17' TT. .. Of course there are NO water or electric hookups at any Vermont SP. This of course we knew ahead of time, so we went prepared: 5 gallon water carriers to refill the tank from a "water point", extra drinking water carried along in truck, 140W solar panel aboard. 2200W generator and 5 gal gasoline for it..aboard. etc. All seemed fine until on day 2 we could not get the WH to run on propane. All we knew to check was to no avail: restart tried several times, all breakers and fuses pulled and all checked out Propane tanks checked out and 'switched'..frig and furnace working fine on gas..checked.

Finally got away from camp to where cell phone service was available..call to factory got us no real help either..just a suggestion about stuff we already had tried, and a suggestion to "have it loooked at" when we got home. (cassy is stil under warantee)

Long story short: we made do and had a great time..[WH of course was working fine]at 3 campgrounds w electric hookups or on generator, while heading home.

Got the Cassy to our local TT repair shop yesterday and had the guru look at it...he found a small lead wire connector loosened in the back side of that little plastic junction box atop the water heater..only vissible AFTER we pulled all driver side cushions and removed both large 'wood' access panels under the bed supports on Driver's side. (2018 Independence Dlx)



The area directly in front of the WH is where the 25' 30 amp cord is stored(when you roll it up into the trailer) and he theorized the heavy CORD probably looped around and hit that little wire, loosening it enuf for the WH to NOT fire up...that little wire happens to be the IGNITER WIRE for the WH. Anyways...this problem was something completely new to us.

I plan to somehow 1. engineer some kind of partition to place in front of the WH area..so that the heavy cord will not bugger up the fragile wires to the wh or the invertor/breaker box. OR 2. A solution wd be to install a "marine connector" on the outside of the trailer and have the CORD not at all rolled up into that space. We'll see.

Any thoughts?????? Esp on where to buy a connector etc. Could I still use my cord w a new connector installed ..etc?

[Casita Greg]

That control board plug-in cord on the top of the WH quite often gets accidentally pulled out, and frustrates many folks because they mostly don't even know it's there. This has been a long documented and on-going problem for years. Makes a good case for installing the bigger utility hatch and the removable twist-lock marine 30 Amp shore power plug, unless you like having to fight and wrestle with that stupid cord through that little hatch, and trying to pull it out and worse yet, having to shove it back in again when you're done. Getting that cord back into that silly little hatch is kinda like the gag gift "spring snake" in a can. Plus, it also gives you access to your converter wiring in the back. Handy if you ever want to add circuits.



I also installed a "hard-wired" Progressive Industries EMS-HW30C surge protector. I like having it inside the trailer behind a locked door rather than the portable plug-in ones which seem to like to grow legs and walk off when you're not looking. This is a link (below) to the one I installed. I also moved the electrical shore power connection to the side and installed a Marinco 30 Amp twist-Lock and a matching female cord end on the remainder of the power cord when I cut it to run into the shore power outlet. In order to perform the installation I enlarged the hole for the small original power cord hatch and put in a bigger one that made installing the surge protector feasible. (It's the same width as the original hatch, just a lot taller.) You can't even get the surge protector through the original small hatch that comes standard, much less see what your doing or have room to use any tools. And now I have extra storage space as well.

https://www.amazon.c...r/dp/B0050EGS5W

https://jet.com/prod...968422b29ea2d22

https://www.amazon.c...amp shore power

[mbbear]

Originally Posted by Casita Greg

That control board plug-in cord on the top of the WH quite often gets accidentally pulled out, and frustrates many folks because they mostly don't even know it's there. This has been a long documented and on-going problem for years. Makes a good case for installing the bigger utility hatch and the removable twist-lock marine 30 Amp shore power plug, unless you like having to fight and wrestle with that stupid cord through that little hatch, and trying to pull it out and worse yet, having to shove it back in again when you're done. Getting that cord back into that silly little hatch is kinda like the gag gift "spring snake" in a can. Plus, it also gives you access to your converter wiring in the back. Handy if you ever want to add circuits.



I also installed a "hard-wired" Progressive Industries EMS-HW30C surge protector. I like having it inside the trailer behind a locked door rather than the portable plug-in ones which seem to like to grow legs and walk off when you're not looking. This is a link (below) to the one I installed. I also moved the electrical shore power connection to the side and installed a Marinco 30 Amp twist-Lock and a matching female cord end on the remainder of the power cord when I cut it to run into the shore power outlet. In order to perform the installation I enlarged the hole for the small original power cord hatch and put in a bigger one that made installing the surge protector feasible. (It's the same width as the original hatch, just a lot taller.) You can't even get the surge protector through the original small hatch that comes standard, much less see what your doing or have room to use any tools. And now I have extra storage space as well.

https://www.amazon.c...r/dp/B0050EGS5W

https://jet.com/prod...968422b29ea2d22

https://www.amazon.c...amp shore power

I could not get any of the links to work 😞