Does anyone have a tankless water heater? I love the idea.....
Serengeti said
05:16 AM Oct 6, 2011
We don't have a tankless water heater, but since we have a MH and it is equipped with the hydro-hot system we have all of the hot water we need on demand. This actually runs on both electric and diesel fuel. Can run hot water as long as we have the diesel fuel.
-- Edited by Serengeti on Thursday 6th of October 2011 05:16:54 AM
bjoyce said
09:07 AM Apr 5, 2012
Actually there are propane tankless hot water heaters that only run on propane. I am not sure I have heard of electric only ones for RVs. A friend has an electric tankless hot water heater on the backside of his house and it needs 80AMPs of electricity.
-- Edited by bjoyce on Thursday 5th of April 2012 09:15:04 AM
Bob and Cheri said
03:38 PM Apr 5, 2012
Bob and I have talked pros and cons on this system. The biggest con we came up with is if you are boon docking, and don't have electric, you don't have hot water. Also, most require at least a 50 amp service and this is not always available, so we have opted to stick with our gas/electric heater for the time being.
MSinMS said
01:02 PM Apr 6, 2012
From our experience with our DRV, the Suburban water heater that it came with, is a lot like the 60amp endless water heater in our bricks & sticks. We have NOT run out of hot water with both of us taking back too back showers yet. When we first discovered this we were surprized and very happy. So we tested it on gas and electric with the same results. It do not matter which one we chose, it was endless hot water.
It is not showers where our 10 gallon Suburban hot water heater runs out, it is washing dishes. Diane make a couple meals that dirty a lot of pots and pans.
MSinMS said
02:53 PM Apr 6, 2012
I believe washing dishes is a lot less water useage than taking a shower. But just to clarify, we take long showers without turning the water off. Not bragging, just trying to help.
Mmalenski said
04:05 PM Apr 6, 2012
I was looking at the RV 500 which would replace the 10 gallon we have, but I wanted to see it work first before I dropped a 1000.00. They say it saves on propane..
bjoyce said
04:32 PM Apr 6, 2012
So far everyone I have heard of who has an RV500 is happy with it. It should save on propane since you only heat when you use the hot water. Is the price difference worth it for cost savings, probably not since it would take a huge amount of usage to make up the $600 or so difference in price? But the endless hot water could be worth it to some. I wouldn't like it because we heat using electric most of the time and having a motorhome with a fixed propane tank it is a pain to fill propane.
MSinMS: If you have both the propane and electric switches on your water heater they will both heat the water at the same time. Depending on the set points of the two heating elements, one will top it off and the other will not. In our old RV we had a 10 gallon Atwood hot water heater and the propane set point was about 5 degrees higher than the electric, so if we had both elements on the electric rarely ran, so when on electric we would keep the propane switch off. Our current RV has a 10 gallon Suburban and the electric set point is higher so we can keep them both on if we want, but on 50AMP non-metered electric we normally only have the electric on. The electric heating elements on all of these hot water heaters, including the 12 gallon Suburban, are about the same size and use about 12 AMPs of 120 volt power. Our experience was that from cold water it takes 2 to 2-1/2 hours of electric to heat 10 gallons fully but only about 20 minutes of propane heating. With both on the time is closer to 15 minutes. Your two "long showers" are probably plenty of time to heat 12 gallons with propane but not with electric only. On full hookups sometime turn your bath faucet, not the shower, to full hot water and run out the hot water while on electric only. You will succeed in running out the hot water in about 5 minutes and it will take a couple hours to have really hot water again.
Everyone washes dishes differently. I can use up 10 gallons of hot water washing up when every pot is used, plus bowls, frying pans and the dinner dishes.
MSinMS said
10:38 PM Apr 6, 2012
Yes, it takes time to heat the water initially from cold, but after that we don't run out of hot water. How many showers does it take to run out, we have not discovered that yet.
Does anyone have a tankless water heater? I love the idea.....
We don't have a tankless water heater, but since we have a MH and it is equipped with the hydro-hot system we have all of the hot water we need on demand.
This actually runs on both electric and diesel fuel.
Can run hot water as long as we have the diesel fuel.
-- Edited by Serengeti on Thursday 6th of October 2011 05:16:54 AM
Actually there are propane tankless hot water heaters that only run on propane. I am not sure I have heard of electric only ones for RVs. A friend has an electric tankless hot water heater on the backside of his house and it needs 80AMPs of electricity.
Here is a link - http://www.tanklesswaterheatersdirect.com/shop/tanklesswaterheaters/precisontemp/rv500waterheatermainpage.asp
.
-- Edited by bjoyce on Thursday 5th of April 2012 09:15:04 AM
Bob and I have talked pros and cons on this system. The biggest con we came up with is if you are boon docking, and don't have electric, you don't have hot water. Also, most require at least a 50 amp service and this is not always available, so we have opted to stick with our gas/electric heater for the time being.
From our experience with our DRV, the Suburban water heater that it came with, is a lot like the 60amp endless water heater in our bricks & sticks. We have NOT run out of hot water with both of us taking back too back showers yet. When we first discovered this we were surprized and very happy. So we tested it on gas and electric with the same results. It do not matter which one we chose, it was endless hot water.
You can find it here for 419.00 .
http://www.adventurerv.net/suburban-water-heater-sw12d-direct-spark-p-27893.html
I believe washing dishes is a lot less water useage than taking a shower. But just to clarify, we take long showers without turning the water off. Not bragging, just trying to help.
MSinMS: If you have both the propane and electric switches on your water heater they will both heat the water at the same time. Depending on the set points of the two heating elements, one will top it off and the other will not. In our old RV we had a 10 gallon Atwood hot water heater and the propane set point was about 5 degrees higher than the electric, so if we had both elements on the electric rarely ran, so when on electric we would keep the propane switch off. Our current RV has a 10 gallon Suburban and the electric set point is higher so we can keep them both on if we want, but on 50AMP non-metered electric we normally only have the electric on. The electric heating elements on all of these hot water heaters, including the 12 gallon Suburban, are about the same size and use about 12 AMPs of 120 volt power. Our experience was that from cold water it takes 2 to 2-1/2 hours of electric to heat 10 gallons fully but only about 20 minutes of propane heating. With both on the time is closer to 15 minutes. Your two "long showers" are probably plenty of time to heat 12 gallons with propane but not with electric only. On full hookups sometime turn your bath faucet, not the shower, to full hot water and run out the hot water while on electric only. You will succeed in running out the hot water in about 5 minutes and it will take a couple hours to have really hot water again.
Everyone washes dishes differently. I can use up 10 gallons of hot water washing up when every pot is used, plus bowls, frying pans and the dinner dishes.
Yes, it takes time to heat the water initially from cold, but after that we don't run out of hot water. How many showers does it take to run out, we have not discovered that yet.
Bill you must have been a lawyer. LOL