My neighbor's Monaco has an Aqua Hot water heating system and he was showing and telling me how efficient these are. I had not heard about them until then and did a little i-search about them. Seems like only the high end coaches have these...but perhaps other on-demand systems are as good? He mentioned that it provides heat for the coach as well and is very cost efficient.Can the AH systems be installed in coaches not having them and are they worth the $$?Thanks

Adding a Hydronic system (that is what a Aqua Hot system is called), is NOT very cost efficient to a RV that does not have one. You HAVE to have a Diesel, there are LP systems, but Diesel is more cost efficient. You have to run the Zone radiator water lines thru-out the RV, and run the Diesel lines and find a place to mount the unit. IF you have slide rooms, then running the Radiator water lines is a lot more difficult and expensive. This is NOT a DYI type job. The cost just for the system(no labor) can run anywhere from $6000 to $12000 depending on the system and size of RV. Then you have the labor and the misc parts (water lines and fittings and such). It is a very nice system to have. Doug

They are very expensive by the time you purchase it and pay to have it installed. If you were in the market for another coach, I would say find one with it. We love ours in our Country Coach. Continuous hot water and hydronic heating keeps the coach nice and warm. Runs on diesel. We still love it although we have had several major repairs done on it. For more info check out: www.rvhydronicheaterrepair.com Roger Berke might be albe to provide more info. You can also call Aqua Hot Sales for pricing. Be sure to be sitting down. They also now have an LP model.

As noted above, it's a great system, but I don't see how you could add it to an RV. The routing of fuel lines and radiator lines to each outlet would be major surgery to an all ready built RV. Also, the hardware takes up one entire basement compartment. It does provide unlimited hot water and heat.http://www.aquahot.com/Products.aspx

I don't know how "Unlimited" the heat is, but it has either a 45,000 or 60,000 Btu heat input from the diesel boiler, that works out to heating about 1.5 GPM from 50F to 140F. The Aqua Hot needs to start out warm to keep up. The built in tank will cool down a bit with use, but still stay above 110F when a normal shower is done. Fuel usage is another thing. 1 gallon of propane is about 95,000 Btu's while diesel is closer to 135,000 Btu's. My guess is a normal propane burner is about 80% efficient, while a typical diesel boiler is only about 75% efficient. So the diesel one is going to cost less per 100,000 Btu's of heat in most areas. There is also a typical electric back up for the Aqua Heat, so you can run a 2,000 - 4,000 watt electric element (depending on model and if the RV manufacture wanted to install a 120 or 240 volt element) to warm the tank over a long time. Typically they warm 10 gallons of anti-freeze, and then there is a hot water coil that the domestic water goes through this heated (160 - 180F) tank and it will instantly warm the domestic water to 140 - 160F, then cool it with a mixing valve on the outlet to the desired 120F outlet water temp.Many systems also include a hot water loop for the engine too. So a 3/4" heater hose line from the diesel engine will go through the Aqua Hot tank, and warm it to the engine running temp (up to about 200F) and also because the engine starts out cold, the 140F tank temp will preheat the engine quickly, then the engine will start supplying heat to the Aqua Hot after a few minutes. So with that option, you have unlimited free hot water while on the road, and about 15 gallons just after you park. Many times this allows you to not turn on the burner at all, if you are not running the furnace and don't need much hot water.Fred.

How about its use in hot weather -- when you want hot water but don't need heat in the coach? Also, do they tend to give off odor and more costly to maintain?

Aqua Hot Systems | Good Sam Community

Blaster_Man
Explorer
Dec 08, 2013
As noted above, it's a great system, but I don't see how you could add it to an RV. The routing of fuel lines and radiator lines to each outlet would be major surgery to an all ready built RV. Also, the hardware takes up one entire basement compartment.

It does provide unlimited hot water and heat.

http://www.aquahot.com/Products.aspx
sdianel_-acct_c
Explorer
Dec 08, 2013
They are very expensive by the time you purchase it and pay to have it installed. If you were in the market for another coach, I would say find one with it. We love ours in our Country Coach. Continuous hot water and hydronic heating keeps the coach nice and warm. Runs on diesel. We still love it although we have had several major repairs done on it. For more info check out: www.rvhydronicheaterrepair.com Roger Berke might be albe to provide more info. You can also call Aqua Hot Sales for pricing. Be sure to be sitting down. They also now have an LP model.
dougrainer
Nomad
Dec 08, 2013
Adding a Hydronic system (that is what a Aqua Hot system is called), is NOT very cost efficient to a RV that does not have one. You HAVE to have a Diesel, there are LP systems, but Diesel is more cost efficient. You have to run the Zone radiator water lines thru-out the RV, and run the Diesel lines and find a place to mount the unit. IF you have slide rooms, then running the Radiator water lines is a lot more difficult and expensive. This is NOT a DYI type job. The cost just for the system(no labor) can run anywhere from $6000 to $12000 depending on the system and size of RV. Then you have the labor and the misc parts (water lines and fittings and such). It is a very nice system to have. Doug

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