Tankless water heater

Just curious if anyone has ever swapped out the electric element for a 220 volt element and modified the wiring for it? Should put out double the wattage.

The suburban tankless that came in my Montana has been great.

Truman, Truma, Teuma. Lol.

FYI, you can only buy the Truma installed, they don't sell the parts alone.

But it is supposed to be the gold standard of RV on-demand. They also have a circulating model made for cold weather, to keep it from freezing up. Their BTU ratings are much higher than the competition, too.

A friend is really happy with his Teuma AquaGo.

My husband talked the the folks at Truma. They said it’s @1700 installed. Think we are going to put the same on back in for now and then save up for an in line. Thanks for all your help. You all are such a blessing

The reviews I've seen for the Truman AquaGo have been very positive. Folks are saying even though it's propane only, it uses very little propane.

Our 6 gal Atwood water heater only yields about 9 min max of hot water. That doesn't work when we have 5 people who need a shower.

I'm going to be swapping the Atwood out for the Truma AquaGo when we get back from our summer trip.

We primarily travel in the summer months and the temp rise is not very big so this unit will be ideal. We just had our rv propane tank filled for the first time. It was in the $21 range and that was in Canadian money - hardly a big expense.

valhalla360 wrote:
You can get them in electric or propane variants.
- Electric struggles with creating enough heat to keep up with a decent flow of water. Think about it, if you have a 5gal/min flow rate, it needs to heat a 5 gal bucket of water from 50F to 120F in 1 minute. Most RV's and Campsite electric posts can't provide that kind of power, so you get derated units that are very marginal.
- We had a propane version on our boat and it struggled to match the heat output to the flow rate. Below a certain flow rate, it would shut down and you got cold water. Then when you opened up the valve, it would get scalding hot for a second before settling back only to get cold when you turned it back down. Unless you have unlimited water so you could just leave the water running at a continuous flow rate, it just didn't work.

I've been watching for information on tankless systems for RV's and have not seen any that use 120V for heating. Please tell me what brand does so.

Thanks,
Scott

OP, there are many systems that work great for residential use but so far I have not read of any that get truly good reviews for RV use. Hopefully someday someone will come out with a winner.

valhalla360 wrote:

- We had a propane version on our boat and it struggled to match the heat output to the flow rate. Below a certain flow rate, it would shut down and you got cold water. Then when you opened up the valve, it would get scalding hot for a second before settling back only to get cold when you turned it back down. Unless you have unlimited water so you could just leave the water running at a continuous flow rate, it just didn't work.

I just cannot see why anyone would want or need these things. What are they trying to accomplish? If the usual tank type can't supply enough hot water, it is time to re-evaluate your water usage.

You can get them in electric or propane variants.
- Electric struggles with creating enough heat to keep up with a decent flow of water. Think about it, if you have a 5gal/min flow rate, it needs to heat a 5 gal bucket of water from 50F to 120F in 1 minute. Most RV's and Campsite electric posts can't provide that kind of power, so you get derated units that are very marginal.
- We had a propane version on our boat and it struggled to match the heat output to the flow rate. Below a certain flow rate, it would shut down and you got cold water. Then when you opened up the valve, it would get scalding hot for a second before settling back only to get cold when you turned it back down. Unless you have unlimited water so you could just leave the water running at a continuous flow rate, it just didn't work.

Be advised as a fulltimer, a tankless ALWAYS heats with propane, not the site's electricity. Not too bad for weekend campers but buying more propane all the time will get old.