Atwood water heater "draining" house battery

[gwtriker]

With everything 12V turned OFF, something in my RV was draining the house battery ... after much testing, determined it was the Atwood water heater(GC6AA-10E). With heaters' 15A fuse pulled - no drain: fuse in - drain. At the heater proper, pulled 12V connector to heater - no drain. With connector still disconnected, tested voltage on the connector - with switches in off position no voltage / voltage when in on position.

Any ideas as to what is causing the drain when the 12V connector is plugged into the heater????

[HiTech]

A relay draw. That makes a lot of sense!

Jim

[wasatchmtnatvr]

If you have the dual switch for water heater with red light lense in the middle also make sure you shut of the 120vac system switch. It uses a 12 vdc circuit with a relay to activate the 120 vac wtr. htr. system. it is the one with a lightning bolt picture next to it. this relay will draw dc amps.

[HiTech]

gwtriker wrote:
With everything 12V turned OFF, something in my RV was draining the house battery ... after much testing, determined it was the Atwood water heater(GC6AA-10E). With heaters' 15A fuse pulled - no drain: fuse in - drain. At the heater proper, pulled 12V connector to heater - no drain. With connector still disconnected, tested voltage on the connector - with switches in off position no voltage / voltage when in on position.

Any ideas as to what is causing the drain when the 12V connector is plugged into the heater????

Do you by chance have a 12v heating element? Is it on? Is your hot water hot when you have a full battery? 15a is way more than a controller board parasitic load. Either I am totally missing something or you have a 12v heating element active, though 15 a seems small for an element.

Jim