what to check when propane water heater stops working in camper

April 09, 2022 Post a Comment

This one is a little embarrassing to acknowledge but we just realized nosotros actually have a combo water heater and not a propane-merely 1. When we bought information technology, I remember beingness told it was a propane powered h2o heater and I gauge we took that at face value.

How did nosotros detect this out? Nosotros have been using information technology on propane and it has been working for a while. Information technology started deteriorating in performance over the last few days and yesterday, it stopped altogether. While researching repair and maintenance tutorials and youtube videos, we learned about what all the different knobs, switches and parts were and lo and behold, our water heater includes electrical heating fashion which functions independently of (or combined with) the propane heating style.

We have a Suburban propane/electric combo water heater (SW6DE) and neither the propane non the electric heating worked.

Of course, as function of troubleshooting, nosotros took to learning a flake more about how these components piece of work.

Electric Heating Fashion – Suburban Combo Water Heater (SW6DE)

The electrical heating mode on this water heater works off the 110V electric system, i.e. it is powered when the RV is plugged in. Some important components of this system and information that might help you troubleshoot:

In that location is a fuse for this in the fuse box nether the stove. This is one of the first things to bank check if the water heater isn't working.
An On/Off switch that is accessed inside the WH console on the outside of the RV. This powers the electric heating mode. It is OK to leave this in the ON position permanentlyEqually LONG Every bit THERE IS WATER IN THE HOT H2o TANK… and I'll show you why in a flake
Thermostat that monitors the water temperature in the tank and closes the 110V circuit when the tank is not warm plenty and opens the excursion once the water is hot enough.
Electric Cut-Off (ECO) that is a fail safe machinery for this system. If the thermostat fails to open the circuit and the water continues to estrus upwardly past 180 F, the ECO switch will exist engaged and open the excursion and interrupts power to the system. There is a Reset button in the WH panel that can be used to close the circuit and restore power. The Reset button on the left restarts the 12V electric component of the propane heating system and the one on the right resets the electrical heating system.

110V circuit

If you take the plastic comprehend off the ECO Reset, you tin can take the voltage reading on the wiring terminals at the ECO (Hi-Limit) and the Thermostat to see if there circuit is broken.
The electrical element should exist taken out and inspected. In our case, this was the culprit because information technology looked like this:

blown element That there is a blown out element that happens if you have run the electric heating mode while the water tank was empty.

WE never did this but it would appear that the sellers had no h2o in the tanks (they plugged in to a hose) but they left the electric heating manner switched on the whole time which would accept caused this to happen.

And so kids, be very careful to never run your water tank empty if you are using electric heating mode.

Propane Heating Mode – Suburban Combo Water Heater (SW6DE)

I experience like I probably volition write a much bigger mail service virtually the propane heating mode components considering it is a trivial more complex but I tin write a little bit about the basic components that helped us troubleshoot what was going on with our organisation. Here is the circuit diagram:

propane circuit diagram

The propane heating mode uses 12 5 electric power to power an electrode that is responsible for creating a spark to ignite the gas. There is a switch inside the camper which controls this mechanism. When the camper switch is turned on, y'all will hear a ticking sound and that is the control board purging air from the propane feed line and attempting to ignite through the spark. This will be done 3 times before it volition lock out and you have to reset the camper switch for information technology to reattempt.

And like the electric heating fashion, there is as well a Fail rubber ECO and thermostat that works in a similar mode to preclude overheating.

Our trouble was the propane heating would work fine for a while but and so it would slowly neglect to ignite and we would need to continue reseting the camper switch.

Finally, it just failed to calorie-free period. Nosotros would hear the ticking and the ignition sequence would end without actually lighting the propane.

A few things to cheque:

AIRFLOW – A flame needs a expert supply of oxygen. One of the first things we did was to open the WH panel and lookout to see if it made a difference. If this fixes the problem, most probable, you'd want to check your vent and make certain it isn't clogged upwards and so the system isn't starved of oxygen. When nosotros tried this, the ignition sequence would fail a few times and then set off a mini explosion that was quite scary at nighttime.
Checking the gas valve and line – Without specialized equipment, we could rely on aroma and sound to check that there was actually propane coming out of the valve. The fact that we saw a mini explosion meant most probable there *was* gas coming out but maybe the menstruation was not sufficient to ignite and maintain a flame indicates that a adept adjacent step would be to check that the piping wasn't obstructed.

We proceeded to make clean out the piping past flushing it out and reconnecting. That seemed to set up information technology for us! (Be certain to check that you accept reconnected all the pipes without leaks)