Propane Hot Water Heater woes... Maybe.

[Bukrub66]

Hello all. I am a couple months into my new to me Class B. Finally got to take it camping and absolutely love it. We have been of course trying to work out a few bugs as we go.

I couldn't get the hot water heater to shut off. Did a search and found a number of things. Had noticed the releif valve leaking, so I replaced that and as I was at it replaced the anode rod as well. Flushed the tank real good. ( you wuold be amazed how much lime came out)

So I get all this done, hook it to water and fire it up. It's a 6 gallon tank and it took 50 minutes for the water heater to shut off. A this point a ran a meat and a candy thermometer under the water. 155 deg. Everything I'm reading say it should be 140.

So my question is 2 part. Should it take 50 min to heat 6 gallons of water? If not what should I do? And secondly... Damn 155 deg. Is this normal or does something still need replaced.

[mlts22]

I'd check the burner. A six gallon water heater should be ready to go in 15-25 minutes.

[WJones]

The recovery rate for this water heater is 10.2 gal/hour, to raise the temperature of the water by 90F. If you started with 45F water, and raised it to 135F, it would take about 35 minutes. Since you brought it up to 155F, 50 minutes might not be too far off.

However, 155F seems way too hot for me !!!

William

[Davydd]

We budget about 15 to 20 minutes to get our 6 gallon hot water to heat up the water before we start using it. Never checked the temperature. Never actually paid attention to whether it shut off or not. We only have it on long enough to do dishes or take showers. Then we turn it off and have probably never had it on for 50 minutes. We never leave it on like we do in our home. I guess I am not much help since I never thought about it much and use it sparingly.

[bobojay]

Originally Posted by Davydd

We budget about 15 to 20 minutes to get our 6 gallon hot water to heat up the water before we start using it. Never checked the temperature. Never actually paid attention to whether it shut off or not. We only have it on long enough to do dishes or take showers. Then we turn it off and have probably never had it on for 50 minutes. We never leave it on like we do in our home. I guess I am not much help since I never thought about it much and use it sparingly.

We do the same. RV hot water heaters are notorious for heating the water too hot for safe usage. About 105 to 110 degrees is the ideal.
Atwood makes an adjustable thermostat for theirs. I don't know about Suburban though.