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shadowpup's avatar
shadowpup
Explorer
Jan 26, 2019

Electric hot water

My elect. hot water heater has always worked until the last time I used the MH. It was working (water hot, red light on rocker switch lighted) at night, got up in AM rocker switch not lighted and no hot water. Reset all 110 breakers, still not working. Turned on propane heat and it worked. ?????
  • Which WH? Suburban uses a small switch outside on the heater that are prone to failure. Also they use resettable limit switch packs. That could have tripped.
  • The inside water heater switch is likely a 12v switch used to energize an interposing relay that sends 120 vac to the water heater. Check your 12v fuses.
  • Is there a chance the element was energized with no water in the tank? If so the element burned out. Easy to replace.
  • Atwood uses same DC source, Same set of T-stat/ECO and same circuit bd/2A fuse......propane works

    So problem could be Bad Element, Bad DC Rely/AC wires

    Got a voltmeter....know how to check/trace circuit?
    All can be tested in outside compartment except for DC Rely and element which are under the cover on backside of tank
    Check White wire and Yellow wire for DC with Electric switch ON and water temp cool.
    Got DC on those two wires then issue is at/with DC Relay---AC wires or element

  • My electric heating element burned up many years ago when our rig was a few years old. I checked the heating element using a volt meter.

    After I completely drained the hot water tank from the outside with our rig on our flat driveway, I unscrewed and removed the element, but water tried to rush out. I quickly reinstalled it and got lots of old towels. When removed the water kept coming and coming, the towels could not contain so much water..

    I called Atwood about it. The service tech told me 1/2 gallon of water stays inside to protect the electric heating element in case someone accidentally left it on while plugged in. He also said the design is such that freezing temps will not harm anything.
  • shadowpup wrote:
    Problem solved. New rocker switch.


    Tnx for the update, good job. :C