Hot Water on Demand? Endless?

CowboyDan · 01-13-2016, 05:55 PM

Hello,

In middle of researching a product called AquaGo by Truma.

Propane fired water heater that uses advanced German engineering to produce limitless hot water - supposedly. Their product allows an easy retrofit of existing water heater. Not cheap $1000 plus installation and Im sure our propane usage would increase but the benefit of always hot water is enticing.

Any experience with this product?

Boiler and Therme for hot water

Thank you ,
Dan and Julie in AZ

RWJSIM2003 · 01-13-2016, 08:06 PM

I don't think it would be worth the cost to us. We have never had a issue with running out of Hot water in the RW I have only had it on propane twice since we bought it.

atom ant · 01-13-2016, 08:06 PM

Some of the motorhomes have that or a version there of. Tiffen is one on the Phaeton. You might jump to one of their forums or even RV.net to see if there is any feedback.

Do you run out of hot water? I don't think I ever have.

On Edit - not sure if its even the same brand, but here was one of the first comments from an owner:
Posted By: spitfirepete on 02/27/13 08:27pm

They provide plenty of hot water, but many owners are not happy with them due to several issues. You can read all about it by searching the tiffinrvnetwork forum. There are many posts on the subject.

Peter and Linda
2011 Tiffin Phaeton
2007 Saturn Vue toad
Bichon and Cocker (spoiled puppies)

r time soon · 01-13-2016, 08:17 PM

No experience with this type. Our previous 5er had a Suburban gas/electric 10 or 12 gallon water heater in it combined with a watts mixing valve. I believe its capacity was equivalent to a 20 gallon or something like that. It had higher thermostat and eco (energy cut off) switch. I believe it was 170 degrees versus 150 degrees and then it was mixed with the cold water before going to your faucet. Worked fine. The current gas/ electric works fine too. I mainly use the electric side because we pay for electric sites. I don't like to use the propane if I don't have to.
Another tankless water Heater is made by Girard. Have no experience with this other than where I worked a few years ago, they ran them as an option. They actually installed quite a few of them.

Chris

spindrift · 01-13-2016, 08:48 PM

I know it doesn't answer your question directly but we've never run out of hot water in our RW and we full timed for a short period last year. As a general rule, I energize both the electric and LP systems simultaneously.

johnboytoo · 01-13-2016, 08:55 PM

Our previous 5er had a Girard instant hot water system and it was very temperamental (teehee !)

While they are good in the S&B, the flow rate and variable temp of the incoming water in an rv allows too many temp swings to be comfortable, much less safe... IMHO, of course

mhs4771 · 01-14-2016, 12:54 AM

I'm assuming that to produce instant Hot Water from Cold, it must be a very high BTU burner assembly, thus high Propane draw. So.....I wonder if you could run into the Propane Freeze-up at times with the high draw?? Would hate to be all soaped up and suddenly no Hot water.
I think it would be great in a S&B with Natural Gas.

spickens7 · 02-11-2016, 11:47 PM

We've had the Atwood version in two RVs (Infinity & Redwood). Personally we like it. The wife likes to run the dish washer and the washing machine and I like long hot showers. I don't like to wait for the hot water to regenerate. Comparing propane to propane usage and not electric, unlike a standard water heater that cycles on and off the keep the water in the tank hot all the time, this heater only uses propane when you are using hot water. One note though about this type of water heater. I've learned as you go up in altitude more oxygen is needed to get the water hot. There is a small, easily accessible knob on the water heater you adjust. It takes less than a minute. My 2 cents for what it's worth.

Shane Wood · 02-12-2016, 02:12 AM

My parents have a 2016 winnebego with the demand hot water heater and have had it replaced 3 times. In fact the dealer had them in stock and that is unheard of in this day and age on high ticket items. So 2hat does that tell you. I can't remember the make but will post when I see them next week. Have not had a problem with ours in 15 mths fulltiming and have had it on electric the whole time. Put it on propane once to make sure it worked

atom ant · 02-12-2016, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spickens7

We've had the Atwood version in two RVs (Infinity & Redwood). Personally we like it. The wife likes to run the dish washer and the washing machine and I like long hot showers. I don't like to wait for the hot water to regenerate. Comparing propane to propane usage and not electric, unlike a standard water heater that cycles on and off the keep the water in the tank hot all the time, this heater only uses propane when you are using hot water. One note though about this type of water heater. I've learned as you go up in altitude more oxygen is needed to get the water hot. There is a small, easily accessible knob on the water heater you adjust. It takes less than a minute. My 2 cents for what it's worth.

Your Redwood has an on demand hot water system? Did you put it in?

**Dave&Ginny** · 02-12-2016, 04:41 PM

I don't know what the answer is........

We've got the Aqua Hot which is supposed to be one of the best systems and it's not flawless. I love the heating side of the unit but we're going back in the shop for the showering end of it. They've had a lot of problems with their circulation pumps.

The thing that would worry me about the continuous hot water systems is the quality of the water in some of the camp grounds. If there's too much Iron or lime I believe they'd clog up.

spickens7 · 02-12-2016, 07:40 PM

No, both units were installed by the RV dealers I purchased the trailers from. First dealer didn't know what they were doing. I had to learn a lot about the unit or take cold showers for the next 10 until we returned home. They had the input and output water lines reversed which would pop the over temp breaker after a minute or two. After I corrected that I found they had a bypass valve half open/closed which was sending hot water back into the unit. The unit would pop the pressure release valve after about 90 seconds and spit out hot water. Once this was corrected everything worked. The second dealer knew what they were doing. We had no issues.

spickens7 · 02-12-2016, 07:50 PM

To Shane. I've heard horror stories from other people as well. All I can tell you is what our experience has been. The first unit's problems were purely dealer install issues. No parts were ever replaced. Once the unit was configured correctly we used it heavily for 8 1/2 weeks with no issues. The second unit in the new Redwood was used for 16 weeks again with no issues. I kept both of the new hot water units that came with the trailers just in case we didn't like the on-demand units. So far that has not been the case.

atom ant · 02-12-2016, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spickens7

No, both units were installed by the RV dealers I purchased the trailers from. First dealer didn't know what they were doing. I had to learn a lot about the unit or take cold showers for the next 10 until we returned home. They had the input and output water lines reversed which would pop the over temp breaker after a minute or two. After I corrected that I found they had a bypass valve half open/closed which was sending hot water back into the unit. The unit would pop the pressure release valve after about 90 seconds and spit out hot water. Once this was corrected everything worked. The second dealer knew what they were doing. We had no issues.

I guess that is what I meant, you had it put in. I was open to the fact maybe Redwood starting offering them at the factory, but I guess not.

Shane Wood · 02-12-2016, 10:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spickens7

To Shane. I've heard horror stories from other people as well. All I can tell you is what our experience has been. The first unit's problems were purely dealer install issues. No parts were ever replaced. Once the unit was configured correctly we used it heavily for 8 1/2 weeks with no issues. The second unit in the new Redwood was used for 16 weeks again with no issues. I kept both of the new hot water units that came with the trailers just in case we didn't like the on-demand units. So far that has not been the case.

That is good to hear. I know my dad will be putting in a regular hot water tank if his goes again

JerryL · 02-12-2016, 11:25 PM

I have full timed with my wife quite a bit, and have never ran out of hot water with two showers, on electric. If my daughter showed up, we just did propane and electric, with no issues. I can't see all that money for me. JMO. FTR, my friend has on demand, that came in his unit, and has never been happy with it. He said luke warm at best.

atom ant · 02-12-2016, 11:50 PM

These 12 gallon tanks are wonderful. We never have noticed running out. I heard the wife scream once from the shower when I started the dishwasher, but I think that is more the way the plumbing is routed than capacity.

Shane Wood · 02-13-2016, 12:23 AM

I can always tell when the DW is not happy with me as the nice hot shower Will turn cold very quickly

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