Water heaters

[bronson]

Girard , the awning people are making them. I see them occasionally on fast track auctions which is in your area. No experience with the heater but I love my 2 cassette awnings I bought a few years ago. Excellent customer service.
GIRARD 2GWHAM Tankless Water Heater https://a.co/d/9VIu6fw

[luvrbus]

Girard , the awning people are making them. I see them occasionally on fast track auctions which is in your area. No experience with the heater but I love my 2 cassette awnings I bought a few years ago. Excellent customer service.
GIRARD 2GWHAM Tankless Water Heater https://a.co/d/9VIu6fw

Those are made by Furrion with a Girard label made in China,Attwood/Seaward are still made for the marine people .If Jim wants hot water while driving the Attwood/Seaward has heat exchanger to heat the water from the engine or use his diesel boiler with a heat exchanger plate 

[Jim Blackwood]

Tanks guys, I ordered the Suburban 10 gallon. Just found a nice door for it on ebay after looking for one at rvparts (couldn't find a black 10 gallon one there)

So I'm all set on the water heater. I never was real big on hot water while on the road, never seemed worth the extra plumbing and not sure what I'd want it for anyway. Park and immediately take a shower maybe? Before leveling and hookups? I mean... it doesn't take that long really, especially if AC is available.

Jim

[windtrader]

I guess too late but some consider using on demand systems. The standard elec water heater I have is a voracious consumer of electricitry so I turn it on once a day for an hour then shut it off. Plenty of very hot/pleasantly warm water for the next 24 hours in average ambient temperatures outside.
Depending on how much more solar and batteries I install I may keep what I have and just let it run and suck the juice. But a small on demand that has quick response and low flow may be the ticket for me. I use so little hot water daily that it makes sense to just heat the few gallons for the shower and a couple for the dishes. Would make the whole elec goblin go away.

[peterbylt]

A little off topic but this is what I plan on doing, currently have an 8 gallon Bosch water heater and am quite happy with the way that works, but eats a lot of amps and I don't run it off the Batteries when Boondocking, When we want hot water I fire up the generator.

Future plans:  my solar system using the SBMS0 has what is called Diversion, when the batteries are done charging each day you can divert the output of the solar panels and use what would be wasted power for another task, in my case I want to divert to heating water.
This Youtube shows almost exactly what I want https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGMZ7bM-Kow

Peter

[Jim Blackwood]

All good ideas and I like that I have an electric element so that when I eventually add solar I can heat the water electrically. That will be a good ways off, certainly no sooner than 5 years I would think. Maybe by then the flexible roll out solar will be available and I can just mat the roof with it. Or the awnings. Or it could be longer but anyway I'm certain that's in our future and I'm willing to wait.

Jim

[Jim Blackwood]

I found a door for the suburban WH on amazon and it didn't look too bad so I ordered it.

The waterheater came in but it was a SW10P not the SW10PE that I ordered. after a bit of wrangling though we settled on a $200 refund and I'd keep the heater. There's a bit more to that story but in the end I can't really fault him and have to accept it as a mistake. End result is that I ended up with one incredible deal on a Suburban 10 gallon piloted propane heater, new for $318 including tax and delivery.

I need to add an electric element and thermostat of course, and I might as well go with the biggest element I can fit. I will lose the anode of course. At least it is a glass lined tank.

I have wiring for 220v available but going that route is probably not a good idea so it'll need to be a 110v element unless I happen across a dual element that will fit the bung hole. Anybody have any suggestions? I'm pretty sure I can use a folded element which should get me up into the 1800 watt range.

Jim

[Jim Blackwood]

I picked up a generic 2000 watt 120v element and thermostat at the box store for about $10 each and modded the element to fit, I now have that installed in the tank. It's a dual tube unit but not folded so I just had to squish the 'U' bend in the vise a little (about .080") and it fit through a 3/4"npt fitting. I put a meter on it and watched the resistance while I was doing it and it didn't so much as fluctuate so I think that's OK. This one is copper. They has some stainless ones but they were less wattage. Next, since it was a screw-in fitting but too big, I put it in the lathe and cut it down and re-threaded it to fit. There is just enough meat in it to do that. Fortunately my lathe has a taper attachment so although it was time consuming to single point the thread it was nothing I haven't done many times before so not really a challenge.

There is room for the thermostat on the pan covering the end of the tank but I think I will pull the styrofoam case and see if they had a place on the tank to mount them. Anyone know?

Lastly, I found that 1/2"npt anodes are available and thought inserting it through a T at the supply line might work. Or even a reducing T, but guess what? the tank has these diffuser tube inserts. I got the bottom one out and it was angled down. Maybe a siphon tube to drain the tank for winterizing? I haven't gotten the top one out yet but if it's angled up maybe it's to reduce the air bubble at the top? Anybody know? It seems to me that any water in the tank below the fill tube that froze would just slide up as it expanded but maybe the ends could be a problem.  There is a reduction in the fitting that indexes the diffuser so that would have to be removed. So far I've not come up with any other way to install an anode but I really would like to come up with something so if anyone has an idea I'm all ears.

Jim

[Jim Blackwood]

Here are a couple shots of the water heater. First one shows installation of the thermostat to a flat on the tank (probably the only flat spot) It's a generic 120v WH upper stat. Located and cut the opening in the blast shield, did some light grinding on the back of the stat for a pair of bumps to clear, installed rivnuts, and used a high temp fiberglass bar to clamp it in place.

Second shot is the modified 2kw element installed in the anode bung. Pretty straightforward and there was more than enough meat on the nut so I'd be surprised if a 3/4npt threaded element wasn't available somewhere. That will give me supercharged performance compared to the 400 and 600 watt kits.

I will be using a T to insert the long original anode through the supply port. I cut it down to .550" diameter and used a 1/4" die grinder to enlarge the restriction in the port. If I'm lucky I'll be able to find a 3/4 to 1/2" reducing street T. If not a standard reducing T and nipple will work.

The cover should come in today or tomorrow.

Jim

[Jim Blackwood]

Here is the modded anode.