Water Heater woes

[megalucky]

This Jayco forum is great and I need some help. I picked up our new 31ul this past week in TX. Love the unit so far.....with the exception of the performance of the "on demand" water system. Way too many cold showers this weekend as the system takes FOREVER to get even a bit warm. I'm hooked up to shore power and city water. Has anyone else experienced it taking over ten minutes or so to produce any hot water? Comments, suggestions? I have one shot back at the dealer before I travel back to my home location close to 1k miles away.

[norty1]

Do some reading on this forum. The subject has been covered pretty thoroughly on a number of threads. Hopefully someone will chime in with some detail.

My suggestion is to turn on the hot water fully, then adjust the temperature with the cold line.

There are some other ideas depending on the model unit. Some have even had it removed and a conventional rv water heater installed.

[Bobs A Class]

Here is my suggestion. Start all over again, like rebooting a computer. Shut off the heater, and press your reset button. Run water thru all your faucets and then turn on the heater. As stated before, in the shower, use your hot faucet only. A lot depends on having enough water pressure going through the heater so try using a pressure regulator that will give you 55PSI. hope this helps.

[pixelshim]

I too struggled with trying to get the on-demand water heater working with the shower, but made a significant breakthrough this past weekend camping at a local state park with full-hookups. There are several good threads on this topic and I implemented a few of the suggestions.

1. Adjustable water pressure regulator - I bought this on Amazon and cranked the pressure up to between 55 and 60 psi. The pressure regulator wasn't very precise in it's adjustment so this is where i landed by cranking it up as far as it could go.

I guess the theory here is the higher pressure forces the water to flow through the system faster, therefore, preventing the system from over heating and auto shutting down the heating element. I believe this is what causes the hot/cold cycles. Anyway, the hot/cold cycles went away for me.

2. Adjust the hot water temperature, such that, it's set at a slightly higher than comfortable temperature that let's you only use the hot water side of the shower faucet. In my case, opening the hot water side all the way actually produced warm water (not hot), but had lots of good pressure. As i turned down the hot water faucet handle, the water temperature increased. I did this until i got the right temperature i wanted. I then proceeded to take a perfectly hot 20 minute shower.

3. Oxygenics shower head - This was the first item I replaced when trying to figure out how to make everything work. I'm not sure this contributes too much to the hot water heater issues, but it take what little pressure there is and produces a great stream of water.

Overall, I'm super happy with the results of these changes. In my case it work for me, your mileage may vary. It's also worth noting that my dealer got approval from Jayco to replace the on-demand heater with a 6 gallon traditional heater. We don't do much boon docking, so I'm not sure what i'll do here.

Some pics....

Adjustable water pressure regulator
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1


On-demand temperature dial
https://pixelshim-test3.azurewebsite...MG_0542_sm.jpg

Oxygenics shower head
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://pixelshim-test3.azurewebsite...MG_0539_sm.jpg


Thanks,
Jeff

[nma33]

I was told at Jayco how to use it, it works, Set the temperature of your shower at the heater control using only the hot water side, Keep that all the way up. We tried this past weekend and it worked fine, had consistent water temperature throughout the shower.

[jgerhard]

Hi Mega,

I replaced the "thankless" water heater in my 2016 Jayco with a standard tanked Suburban. It fit right in and required some minor mods.

The original unit worked fine with full hookups (after some fiddling) but was junk when dry camping using the water pump. Since we do 50% boondocking, the "thankless" unit had to go. I sold it for more than a paid for the tanked unit so it worked out great!

Pics here:

http://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/me...lbums1132.html

[Cycledoc675]

I have had good luck boondocking using the water pump and my tankless hot water heater for quality showers. I have used pixelshim's method since the first week I owned it and have had no problems. I'm interested in that Oxygenics shower head though. Granted, you can conserve water easier and regulate the temp best with a standard hot water heater, but you can't beat the meager propane consumption and the ease of winterizing a tankless unit. There are always trade offs....

[gmapatime]

It's like everything else in life, it's hard to change what we were use to. We have had no issues with the tankless WH once we understood how it works.

[megalucky]

Thanks to all who responded. I was able to take many of these comments back to the dealer. They found a clogged valve, a crack in one gas line feeder pipe and made other adjustments. I added a 50-55 pressure regulator and better hose. That did the trick (so far). No issues and hot water a plenty!! Thanks again for the feedback. Nice to know help is not too far away with this forum.

[Arniesports60]

i too am frustrated with uneven (warm, old, very hot) temps with
even a short shower. I am getting researching costs on
replacing the tankless with a standard system
note: Dealer Service rep told me last week many Jayco owner
have trouble with the system,

The Girard rep also said to - Set Temp dial in bathroom and
ONLY use hot water valve in shower...

After reading your great posts, I will try the changes
(ex: from std pressure control valve to controllable one)
and see if they help resolve the problem before swapping
to a new system.

Mike

[Arniesports60]

has anyone also removed the head restrictors on the shower
and bath heads as done by others too (see below for sample posts)??
---

Girard instructions suggest you remove the restrictor in the shower. I did that by unscrewing the shower head and prying out the restrictor. Did the same for the kitchen faucet. With the girard temp dial set midway and the inlet water temp at 55 degrees, the constant hot water was 92 degrees. Perfect.

[CarlB]

While I haven't removed any restrictors, I have swapped the shower head to an Oxygenics shower head, which is likely an even bigger restrictor...

What we have seen is that incoming pressure matters greatly. having the fully adjustable pressure gage with a dial helps you understand if the park pressure is acceptable for the Girard system. On a recent trip the park pressure was outstanding, but due to my water filter getting clogged, the flow went to a trickle. This caused my wife to have a really bad dance in the shower that resulted in some kind words to me to address the issue. In this case, I swapped to the internal tanks and it got her a much better experience in the shower.

[street rod 37]

I had issues with the hot water. Till I figured out they plped the hot and cold water backwards. Wearing glasses but not in shower took awhile to figure what was going on

[jhawkwest]

Mega - we struggled at first then:

Discovered the flow sensor requires 45 lbs pressure to register. We got an adjustable regulator and set it to 50. It seems that the cold water diverts a stream and lowers the pressure so we turn on no cold while showering. Instead, we simply dial up the desired temperature on the control pad and shower endlessly. The pressure is a bit whimpy that way but I change it from rain to stream and the showers are wonderful. A head with restrictive insert might increase the pressure at the head. Using this technique we've had no cold shower in ages and would never switch to a tank heater.

[Jacobsnc]

Once we learned the tricks of the tankless heater we have had no issues.

[Arniesports60]

I can say after making the following 3 changes -
Replace water filter
replace shower head with Oxygenics
Use Adj. Water Pressure Regulator (set to 50psi)

That we no longer had any temp. spikes and the water temp stayed constant!

So, on trip last week everyone enjoyed uneventful showers!