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MilesandSmiles's avatar
Dec 04, 2018

New Thermeral Cut Off -> lukewarm water

I accidentally turned on our Atwood Electric/Gas water heater while it was empty, and blew the Thermal Cut Off. It wouldn't heat up using electric or gas. I bought a replacement kit at Camping Word and replaced the part. The heater fired up immediately, but the water only gets lukewarm.

Any ideas of what might still be wrong? This is the case whether using electric or gas to heat the water.
  • It's fixed - and as is often the case, it was a combination of causes.

    1) The Thermal Cut off was blown, and correctly replaced. I confirmed this by bleeding some water out of the blow valve which was indeed quite hot. But...

    2) The valves to the outside shower were open, but the trigger was closed. So, hot and cold water were mixing. So, I shut the valves outside. But...

    3) By now I'd moved the bypass valve so many times that it had ended up in the bypass position again. So, I flipped the valve, and..

    HOT WATER!

    Thanks everyone. Between this forum and watching an RV Geeks video, ya'll saved me some money, and made it possible for me to smell sweet as a rose again after a good hot shower!



    Old-Biscuit wrote:
    nineoaks2004 wrote:
    The high limit thermostat button might have blown also...


    Water heater wouldn't work on electric or propane if that was the case.
    Atwood water heater uses the ECO (Energy Cut Off--hi temp t-stat) as part of control loop on either heat source

    Luke warm water is a result of mixing Hot with Cold
    *Bypass valve
    *MIXING Valve hot side clogged (if it is an XT model)
    *Shower only turned off with lever/button on handles
    *The T-stat is opening too soon

    Test water temp at T&P Relief valve after a heating cycle..... CAUTION: WATER COULD BE VERY HOT (140*F) if standard model
    or (155*F) if XT model

    Which Model do you have?
  • nineoaks2004 wrote:
    The high limit thermostat button might have blown also...


    Water heater wouldn't work on electric or propane if that was the case.
    Atwood water heater uses the ECO (Energy Cut Off--hi temp t-stat) as part of control loop on either heat source

    Luke warm water is a result of mixing Hot with Cold
    *Bypass valve
    *MIXING Valve hot side clogged (if it is an XT model)
    *Shower only turned off with lever/button on handles
    *The T-stat is opening too soon

    Test water temp at T&P Relief valve after a heating cycle..... CAUTION: WATER COULD BE VERY HOT (140*F) if standard model
    or (155*F) if XT model

    Which Model do you have?
  • Double check to make sure you don't have your water heater by-pass on, or partly on. Double check to make sure you have no faucet knobs turned on and the sprayer or shower head at the end simply switched off. Turn all the faucets, shower knobs, outside showers or faucets off, both hot and cold.

    To truly check the temperature of the water in your tank, pull the pressure relief valve and see just how hot the water actually is. If it's really hot, that means your hot water is mixing with cold somewhere down the line.

    I'd start checking faucets first.

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