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nickfrost

I have a '96 Winnebago fitted with am Attwood water heater which looks exactly like the one illustrated at http://www.atwoodmobile.com/Products/water/elecignt.cfm. It has worked well for several years but recently, not so well! The water runs very hot for 10 seconds or so when the hot tap is first opened, but then runs barely warm. Turn the water off for half a minuite or so, and back on again, and the same happens again. I would welcome your comments about what may be wrong with it and how it might be fixed!

falken

The water heater has a 8 gallon hot water tank. Does the furnace run for a while? Mine takes about 30 minutes to heat from cold. It's not a mixer tap by any chance is it? Just wondering if the problem could be there. It would certainly explain very hot water for a few seconds.

Regards
Doug

nickfrost

Don't think the problem's there. The gas lights and burns properly, it seems. And the short spurt of hot water is the same whether I use the shower mixer or the hand-basin single hot tap.

It would perhaps help me if I understood the principle. What's the shape of the thing? Is it just a large round tank with the gas flue running through it?

damondunc

Make sure that the water heater by pass valves are in the correct position one may have been knocked out of position inadvertantly, refer to your manual for location, normally in the pipework leading to the water heater. The other possibility is a gunged up tank, have you ever flushed it out?
Most likely cause is the bypass.
Dunc.

nickfrost

Thanks. I wrote to Attwood and they had suggested the bypass valve. I didn't know I had one! But went looking and found it. And it seemed like it was maybe a few degrees off fully closed - maybe this could cause it - I'll try it out at the weekend.

Flush out the tank? Sounds like a good idea - how would I set about that?

ChristheBigfoot

A very common problem of not enough hot water and the water heater itself seems to be operating correctly is that the outside shower hot and cold handles are both open. This will create a mixing of the hot and cold water. I would first insure that those faucet handles are in the closed off position.