Low hot water flow-dribble
I own a 1996 Winnebago Brave 31RQ which has a standard Atwood 6 gallon water heater. Recently I'm experiencing not much more than a dribble out of all hot water faucets. The small amount of water makes it about impossible to take a shower, which my wife says makes me smell too bad for her to continue camping with me. It doesn't matter whether I am on house water from the house water pump or shore/street water; it's the same limited flow. The cold water works normally all the time on street or house water. The only unusual things that have occurred prior to this happening is that we were in an area that had a strong smell of sulfur in the water and that water came from a relatively shallow well which might have had some dirt or sand in it. (There have been no filters installed in the system.) Additionally, the hot water pressure relief valve started to leak badly sometime after the shallow sulfur well incident-which led me to suspect some dirt or grit from the shallow well. I was on the road at the time so I had the relief valve changed by a reputable RV dealer. It's been another weekend trip or two since the relief valve change when this low water flow situation has presented itself. I'm pretty mechanically savvy and have been maintaining my RVs for the last 20 years, but can't figure this one out. I've disconnected the hot water feed line from the water heater tank and connected a street water hose directly to all 4 hot water faucets and I get good normal flow. I then removed the hot water drain plug, shut the hot water faucets off and connected a street water hose to the hot water outlet line in an attempt to blow any possible dirt or blockage in that line back out through the tank. I get good water flow through the drain, but cannot really tell if it's unrestricted. When I reconnect everything back up I still get the same low flow through all hot water faucets. This would indicate that the problem is not in the hot water lines which only leaves the hot water tank itself. I'm stumped..........and my wife won't go camping with me any more...........and I'm too old and ugly to start looking for another female companion. Any ideas will be appreciated. Thanks
