# Learned Something New This Past Weekend



## Cajun Duckman (Feb 17, 2006)

So there I was Friday evening camping with my DW getting ready to brush my teeth. I turned the hot water on at the sink because my left hand was the free one. To my surprise, hot water started coming out and I had not flipped the switch on the wall to fire it up.

Well, after a quick look at my owner's manual, I learned that I have a switch for electric power to the water heater located under the bunk bed. Seems the previous owners had switched it on and never turned it off. Hopefully this won't affect my heating element, but I was surprised that I hadn't burned the TT to the ground since the trailer had been plugged in for almost a month without us in it.

That is the first true engineering flaw I have found on our trailer. One would think that there would at least be an indicated led to let you know the electric element was switched on...


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## 2500Ram (Oct 30, 2005)

Cajun Duckman said:


> So there I was Friday evening camping with my DW getting ready to brush my teeth. I turned the hot water on at the sink because my left hand was the free one. To my surprise, hot water started coming out and I had not flipped the switch on the wall to fire it up.
> 
> Well, after a quick look at my owner's manual, I learned that I have a switch for electric power to the water heater located under the bunk bed. Seems the previous owners had switched it on and never turned it off. Hopefully this won't affect my heating element, but I was surprised that I hadn't burned the TT to the ground since the trailer had been plugged in for almost a month without us in it.
> 
> ...


Welcome Cajun Duckman action

Our 03 26RS is the same way. I believe there was a change in 04 that removed this switch on top of the water heater and just had a breaker for the water heater. Glad everything is still working on the electric side. As long as there is water in the tank everything should be fine.

On a side note we dewinterized this past weekend and hadn't moved the water heater bypass valve yet and low and behold the water heater filled with antifreeze and water from the lines once connected to city water pressure. No antifreeze in the tank using just the water pump, maybe that was the safety feature at the time







. I'd take a closer look at your bypass valve under the bunk and make sure yours is correct for winterizing if it's necessary in your neck of the woods.

Good luck.

Bill.


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## HootBob (Apr 26, 2004)

WOW I'm glad you didn't have any trouble

Don


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## Thor (Apr 7, 2004)

Welcome to Outbackers.com action

I am sure glad your water heater still works.

Thor


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## hatcityhosehauler (Feb 13, 2004)

> Our 03 26RS is the same way. I believe there was a change in 04 that removed this switch on top of the water heater and just had a breaker for the water heater. Glad everything is still working on the electric side. As long as there is water in the tank everything should be fine.


No switch on the water heater in my '04. I agree, as long as there was water there, you should be fine.

Tim


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## madmaccm (Oct 7, 2005)

Welcome to Outbackers.com Cajun Duckman!

Glad to see you had luck on your side and nothing really bad happened.

Good luck and Happy Outbackin!

C-Mac


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## VA_Joe (Aug 2, 2005)

I learned this just prior to our first trip of the season last week. I had heard rumor of electric and gas heating and found an old thread which discussed this in detail.

One suggestion that I incorporated was to turn on/off the electric heater via the circuit breaker during setup and breakdown. Prevents me from having to touch the water heater each trip.

Joe


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## California Jim (Dec 11, 2003)

Yeah the 02's and 03's seem to have had that "feature", or lack thereof. Never did understand why they did that, being that it's fairly inconvenient, and "out of sight - out of mind". Glad you found it before damaging the unit.


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## NDJollyMon (Aug 22, 2003)

Yea...mine has a switch on the heater. I leave it on all the time, and switch the breaker on when I want to use electric mode.


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## Cajun Duckman (Feb 17, 2006)

I take it there is a dedicated breaker for the water heater? I will be checking that out tomorrow morning. I am making a pre-trip and post trip checklist and I added the water heater switch to the list. If there is a dedicated breaker switch I would prefer to just turn that off since I already open the breaker panel to pull the gas monitor fuse.


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## NDJollyMon (Aug 22, 2003)

Yes...dedicated breaker. Hopefully, labeled right.


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## DANJOGAVINMO (Apr 17, 2004)

I end up using the gas only, even when plugged in. I suppose if I made a rigorous check list then I could use the breaker approach, but out of sight/mind gets me all the time.

I suppose it is cheaper to use the park's electricity, but I'd like to think the gas heat is superior in providing faster heating of the water and possibly extend the time I can spend in the shower!









Danny


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## 2500Ram (Oct 30, 2005)

Danny, why not use both, park electric and when you shower about 5 minutes before kick on the propane. That's what we do and always have hot water with less propane use, we can take 2 short showers and 2 baths for the kids with about a 5 minute recovery between each using both electric and propane. The electric element will keep the water warm at best in my opinion and needs propane for hot but once hot the electric will keep it warm for weeks at no cost for you, as long as it's not you electric your plugged into.

Bill.


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