Water Heater....leave on or as needed?

blackcows wrote:

MarkTwain wrote:

blackcows wrote:
Do you leave your hot water heater on when camping or on and off as needed?

Turn it on and leave it on! 1 person can use 4-5 gallons of heat water per shower, so the rest of the family will have to wait for your water heater to heat up the tank again:( The savings by turning off the heater after your shower is minimal but the inconvenience of waiting for hot water is maximum.

Well that makes me a bit nervous. I only have a 45 gallon tank and 3 ladies that shower. I guess I need to be more worried about water than Propane ?? Most of the horse shows we go to have electric but no water so we only have the water we haul. Guess Propane is the least of my worries.

Long hair can be an issue. Otherwise there is no reason ladies should need more shower water than men. Without access to an endless water supply, a shower is not a form of entertainment. I have done lots of desert camping and find that being alone I will use about 3 gallons of water a day. Roughly 2 gallons go to drinking, cooking and dish washing. The remain gallon goes to a shower. Wet down, soap up and rinse off. That is it. My wife uses maybe a half gallon more for rinsing hair. Together we are at about 5-7 gallons a day for everything. One way to conserve water is to heat the water to the correct temperature for a shower so that adjusting the temperature is not needed. I use a small electronic cooking timer. Depending on the initial water temperature, it takes 20 minutes plus or minus 5 minutes to reach the correct temperature. We only heat water once a day. For dish washing we heat water on the stove. For just a few dishes, which is typical, I heat a little water on the stove often in the pan that was used for cooking. Dish washing has the potential to waste a lot of water. We use paper plates if we really need to conserve.

Mandalay Parr wrote:
What do you do with your one at home?
Mine is on all the time.

It's just electric. I leave the one on at home all of the time. I guess I was just worried about how much Propane I would burn. Cost wasn't my big concern runnng out was but that doesn't sound like it will be a problem.

MarkTwain wrote:

blackcows wrote:
Do you leave your hot water heater on when camping or on and off as needed?

Turn it on and leave it on! 1 person can use 4-5 gallons of heat water per shower, so the rest of the family will have to wait for your water heater to heat up the tank again:( The savings by turning off the heater after your shower is minimal but the inconvenience of waiting for hot water is maximum.

Well that makes me a bit nervous. I only have a 45 gallon tank and 3 ladies that shower. I guess I need to be more worried about water than Propane ?? Most of the horse shows we go to have electric but no water so we only have the water we haul. Guess Propane is the least of my worries.

What do you do with your one at home?
Mine is on all the time.

blackcows wrote:
Thank you...

How would I know if my heater is electric and gas or just gas?

Look in your manual or call the customer service of the mfg. of your RV. My heater runs on both electric/gas or I can use both electric and propane at the same time.

blackcows wrote:
Do you leave your hot water heater on when camping or on and off as needed?

Turn it on and leave it on! 1 person can use 4-5 gallons of heat water per shower, so the rest of the family will have to wait for your water heater to heat up the tank again:( The savings by turning off the heater after your shower is minimal but the inconvenience of waiting for hot water is maximum.

I turn mine off at night, just so I don't have to hear it fire up in the middle of the night.

Turns out, I don't really need all that much hot water anyway, so I mostly just run it as needed..

I fire it up when we first get in and then just deal with it as needed..

No shower in my rig, so no need for that.. :) (converted the actual "shower" to storage space... Much better use of the space.. It really sucks as an actual 'shower'..)

We do dishes as needed, but there is only 2 of us, so we don't use that many dishes..

Just depends on your individual needs and use for the most part.

There is no general "rule" on how to use it... Just use it as needed.. ;)

Mitch

When camping, or at home (driveway camping), leave on.

I use to run electric only when at campgrounds on my previous trailers, but the current trailer I have is 30 amp, and I have on occasion maxed-out the the 30 amp and popped the main breaker in the camper. Seems, this camper has a littler higher electric AMP draw than my previous ones. But we also have more electronics plugged in also.

So, I started keeping my water heater on gas, so as not to max out the available 30 amp. Since I've started doing that, I've never popped another breaker again. We're talking Summer camping, with the air-conditioner running. In the Spring and Fall when there is no demand for air conditioning, I'll then run on the electric mode.

I have found, it uses very little propane to keep the water heater hot. I've been on one 30 pound tank now since Spring, and the water heater has been on pretty much all the time, except when actually on the road.

If it is elect and the electric is included in your site fee, leave it on.

I turn on as needed, usually just in the evening to wash the day's dishes and to shower. Then it will remain off until the next evening.

There is the lengthy on/off debate... I lived in my trailer during weekdays for 26mo. My water heater is located under the master bed, so I didn't want it to wake me. I noticed it would cycle much more frequently during the colder months of left on, so it was more cost effective to turn on before use.