# Irratic Water Heater



## austinpowers (Jul 9, 2006)

I use my 06 26RLS during the week as my "second home" so my TT gets a good workout. But all of a sudden my water heater, on occasion, will decide to not ignite and I end up with cool/cold water. Obviously, I am using gas. The TT is parked so I am hooked up to a 120 gal. tank. I have plenty of gas. It works without fail for days and then all of a sudden it will quit. It will then usually ignite if I reset it and let it try again.

Any clues out there????

Rod


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## Carey (Mar 6, 2012)

It might be the wind.. Here in Colorado we get inversions, with wind that seems to push straight down.. It only happens once or twice a year.. My pilot in my hot water heater in my house goes out then too.. I know yours doesnt have a pilot, but maybe the wind is causing it not to light.. Our wood stove doesnt do well either on those days.. It wont vent worth a darn.

Just a guess..

Carey


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## huntr70 (Jul 8, 2005)

austinpowers said:


> I use my 06 26RLS during the week as my "second home" so my TT gets a good workout. But all of a sudden my water heater, on occasion, will decide to not ignite and I end up with cool/cold water. Obviously, I am using gas. The TT is parked so I am hooked up to a 120 gal. tank. I have plenty of gas. It works without fail for days and then all of a sudden it will quit. It will then usually ignite if I reset it and let it try again.
> 
> Any clues out there????
> 
> Rod


Spiderwebs in the intake tube???


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## Scrib (Jun 28, 2005)

Close the mixing tube a bit - it is getting too much air. There's a pic in this thread:
http://www.outbackers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14043
(the shiny tube with slots) just loosen the screw and slide the tube to close down the slots.


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## redmonaz (Jul 24, 2006)

Could it have something to do with the hose running from the large tank? Maybe if the heater kicks on the same time the water heater is on, it will drop the line pressure and the hot water heater will go out. The heater will try to restart itself, but I don't think the hot water heater would.

Good luck with it.
Don


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## Yianni (Aug 30, 2006)

I had a similar problem with my 2006 23rs. When camping the water heater would work fine for several hours then shut off. The dealer did a pressure test on the propane system and found it was set at 8. They raised it to 10 and a half which he said is normal. The system just did not have the pressure to keep the heater going. Still no problems after several trips.

Lou


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## egregg57 (Feb 13, 2006)

Some good points and things to check for all of us! Good post!

Eric


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## austinpowers (Jul 9, 2006)

Thanks for all the replies. I did the bug check the other day and it was clean. Also the flame looked very good. I went out this morning to start going over the unit with a close eye. I dug out the manual and it said if you have eratic operation to clean the terminals on the terminal blocks on the control board with an eraser. When I went to pull off one of the connectors I notice the wire wasn't seated into the actual terminal block that holds the wires together. I tugged on it slightly and it pulled right out of the terminal block. I pulled the terminal block, reseated the wire into it and then plugged it back into the control board. Time will tell if it fixes it. I think it will. According to the book, that wire comes from the remote switch in the trailer that feeds 12 volts to the control board when you are in gas mode. If that wire touched most of the time but every now and again didn't quite touch, that could be my problem.

By the way, the same thing happened to me with an eratic car that would just quit and then restart. This was before computers in cars. After that car left me sitting on an LA freeway during rush hour I got real serious about finding the problem. It was a loose wire in a terminal connecting block. Pushed the wire in and never had another problem.

Life if good. The sun is shining and it's 70+ degrees in Texas.

Rod


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