Need a replacement, thinking about just going tankless. Anybody done the same? The freeze last week ruined most things in our camper.. truly distraught.
I went to tankless and absolutely love it. Best upgrade I’ve done to the RV. It did freeze up a bit in the hard cold snap, despite having freeze protection. But it didn’t freeze enough to damage it, just enough to not have any hot water. Waved a heat gun at it for a little bit and started flowing just fine. Stuffed some heat tape in it and shut the door on it and it didn’t freeze up again after that. Being able to wash dishes the jump directly in the shower or have back to back showers and they last as long as you want has been an absolute game changer for me and my wife. We got the Fogatti 8 pro. Was super easy to install too.
Tankless basically has to be gas which doesn’t make much sense if you get free electricity at a campground. Electric ones would need basically and entire 50a plug as they use 8-10kw.
I put a 20gal apartment type and love it. About to add a thermostatic valve so I can set the water heater high and valve lower so it’ll mix some cold water so it turns a 20gal into above 30gal
My biggest fear.
How cold did it get where you are?
It depends on how you use your rv. My new rig has one and I love it if there are full hook-ups. Limitless hot water is great. But if you’re at a state park or other site where you don’t have full hook-up’s it totally sucks. Instead of pausing the warm water to soap up and then turning it back on to rinse, when you turn it back on it’s cold and you have to wait for the water to warm up again. You end up going through a ton of water just waiting for it to warm back up. I’m likely swapping it for a standard two way water heater as that’s my primary camping environment.
Got to -14 here and my tankless hot water worked fine. Drained the lines after each use during the storm though so they wouldn’t freeze.
There’s several different options for retrofitting your rig with a tankless, the big thing is if you prefer a) a water heater that puts out a temp you’re used to or b) if you prefer a heater that outputs your desired temp so when you shower the cold tap isn’t even turned on. These will have a controller inside your rig to adjust the desired temp.
Source: Water tank busted..
