Girard GSWH-2 3rd generation tankless water heater

[Wendyt]

Thank you both for replying. I haven’t noticed the pressure being low .... but I’ll pay closer attention in the morning. As far as the pump goes When I got my walk around. They said don’t use the pump ?? I should then if the pressure is low ??

[Rice1951]

X2 on the operation of the Girard tankless WH. There are a lot of varying opinions on this forum about Girard - some good and some not so good. I have the 3rd generation on my Precept and it is very finicky when the CG water pressure is low. The workaround is to use the onboard water system and then it works great but the drawback is your pump will run continuously particularly when you are using the shower. I am having Jayco replace mine with the Truma system when it goes back to the factory next Spring. Good luck with yours and hope you have more success than I did.

[Joe1mc]

Just looked at a 2018 Seneca, they are installing the Truma water heaters. Too bad some of us have to live with the Girard $&$$.

[pconroy]

Originally Posted by Wendyt

Thank you both for replying. I haven’t noticed the pressure being low .... but I’ll pay closer attention in the morning. As far as the pump goes When I got my walk around. They said don’t use the pump ?? I should then if the pressure is low ??

I'll leave it to someone smarter than me to come up with the "why" on why they could have said it.

I can't see a reason.

When we're hooked up to city (campground) water with good pressure (50-60psi) then we run the shower right off that, right off the city water. And we have no problems.

But there's one campground in Lyons that gives us trouble when we use their water supply directly. So I use the campground water to just fill the Fresh Water tank. Then I flip the valves to "Normal" and shower by pumping from the tank.

No different than 'boondocking'.

Smarter people invest in a decent pressure regulator, one that comes with a gauge and valve. That seems to help too.

[MikeThompson]

Originally Posted by Rice1951

I am having Jayco replace mine with the Truma system when it goes back to the factory next Spring. Good luck with yours and hope you have more success than I did.

Make sure you have Jayco install the Comfort model. We have the Truma in our 2018 35S but Jayco installed the Basic model which does not have freeze protection. We went to the Truma service center in Florida and had them do the upgrade. Much cheaper if Jayco had installed the better one.

[Rice1951]

Thanks for the tip. I certainly will ask them about it and hopefully they have the Comfort model available. If not I wll still take the Truma as everything I have read about it makes it far superior to the Girard.

[MikeThompson]

I have no compaints with ours. We've used it with full hookups and when dry camping and it has worked great.

[Wendyt]

Thank you all. I’m up. I’ll shower. I’ll see what happens . I appreciate the input.

[HappyCamper86]

I am having a problem with mine where it is choosing if and when it wants to work. it will start off working then just stop and then start again a few days later. when it does this the screen doesn't tur on almost like it doesn't register the water is even on. my dealership keeps telling me that its lack of water pressure but that is not true. the campgrounds we stay at always have good pressure. Also we have tried using it with the pump in the camper instead of directly being hooked up to the water and it still does it. so I know its not the pressure. the dealership has had my camper 3 times and they still don't know what I'm talking about. they also don't seem to know what they are talking about.

Could you by any chance tell me what your problem was? did it do the same thing where it didn't want to work all the time? if so could you explain to me how you fixed it?

Really appreciate it!! this is becoming such a headache!

[McGintys924]

Jayco is only giving the basic model, which does not have any degree of freeze protection; it only fires when a demand is called. If you can get Jayco to upgrade you to the Truma unit from your current girrard, the Truma service center in FL with upgrade you to comfort (one step up from basic) for only the cost of the parts. The Truma is very nice!

[blujay40]

Originally Posted by HappyCamper86

I am having a problem with mine where it is choosing if and when it wants to work. it will start off working then just stop and then start again a few days later. when it does this the screen doesn't tur on almost like it doesn't register the water is even on. my dealership keeps telling me that its lack of water pressure but that is not true. the campgrounds we stay at always have good pressure. Also we have tried using it with the pump in the camper instead of directly being hooked up to the water and it still does it. so I know its not the pressure. the dealership has had my camper 3 times and they still don't know what I'm talking about. they also don't seem to know what they are talking about.

Could you by any chance tell me what your problem was? did it do the same thing where it didn't want to work all the time? if so could you explain to me how you fixed it?

Really appreciate it!! this is becoming such a headache!

Environment requirements according to Girard:
1. Min 40# water pressure. Many, including myself find 50# works better.
2. Min .9 gal/min water flow. Remove/bypass and water filters you may have installed.

Many report that getting and using an adjustable water pressure valve has resolved quite a few problems.

With that said, that still doesn't explain why the Girard won't work with the water pump. Doing that eliminates 1 and 2 above.

So here are a few things we did that helped. I am assuming you don't have any error codes displayed on the control panel.

1. Remove all water restrictor washers (not aerators) from the faucets and shower head. Usually consists of a plastic disc with one or more small holes in it that are much smaller than the water supply hose.

2. Make sure all lines hot and cold are bled. In our 330RSTS, the washer lines in the front pass thru were a constant headache for harboring air which allowed for wild swings in water pressure at time and caused the Girard burner work and shut down unexpectedly. Such air in the lines even caused the Girard to turn on unexpectedly when we simply flushed the toilet because the air in the lines caused a water fluctuation bad enough for the Girard to sense a "flow" and begin the startup process.

3. Make sure there are no obstructions in the exhaust tube such as bees, spiders, etc.

4. Make sure the outside shower (if you have one) is turned off.

5. Give Girard a call directly instead of messing around with a dealer or Jayco. They are just in the way. Girard support has been fantastic with helping us resolve all our issues, including shipping us a new unit and authorizing to reimburse us for a remote on site installation.

https://greenrvproducts.com/pages/how-can-we-help

6. If all else fails, see if you can get Jayco to swap it out with a traditional Gas/Elec tanked heater or do as we did, buy a Truma AquaGo.

[HappyCamper86]

I’ve spoken to my dealer they don’t seem to want to swap my tankless out for a regular one. They said it’s a big project.😞 they don’t seem the brightest over there

[HappyCamper86]

Well I know it’s not freezing for it being too cold outside cause it was doing this to me in mid summer as well. But this is good to know thank you

[blujay40]

Originally Posted by HappyCamper86

They said it’s a big project.�� they don’t seem the brightest over there

Sadly, I think your right. First, call Girard to see if they can help. If not, call Jayco and tell them what your dealership said. I bet you will hear at least a couple seconds of silence on the other end.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by HappyCamper86

I am having a problem with mine where it is choosing if and when it wants to work. it will start off working then just stop and then start again a few days later. when it does this the screen doesn't tur on almost like it doesn't register the water is even on. my dealership keeps telling me that its lack of water pressure but that is not true. the campgrounds we stay at always have good pressure. Also we have tried using it with the pump in the camper instead of directly being hooked up to the water and it still does it. so I know its not the pressure. the dealership has had my camper 3 times and they still don't know what I'm talking about. they also don't seem to know what they are talking about.

Could you by any chance tell me what your problem was? did it do the same thing where it didn't want to work all the time? if so could you explain to me how you fixed it?

Really appreciate it!! this is becoming such a headache!

The Girard "Thankless" water heater activation flow rate is 0.8 gal/min. My water pump in my Eagle 3121RSTS would cycle above and below this and wreak havic with the Girard. Also, if you use a flow regulator on water input or if you have dirty faucet screens, it could easily go below 0.8. Best is to measure your flow. Time filling a gallon milk carton to determine gal/min. I worked extensively with Girard technical rep, and no real help. I hated the Girard and tried for 6 months to make it work to an acceptable level, then just bailed on it. The only solution is to replace it with either a tank heater, or better like I did a Trump Aqua-Go Comfort, which is an on-demand heater with a small tank so it works just like a tank heater with infinite volume. Expensive but worth every cent!

[Jon]

Originally Posted by Jon

The Girard "Thankless" water heater activation flow rate is 0.8 gal/min. My water pump in my Eagle 3121RSTS would cycle above and below this and wreak havic with the Girard. Also, if you use a flow regulator on water input or if you have dirty faucet screens, it could easily go below 0.8. Best is to measure your flow. Time filling a gallon milk carton to determine gal/min. I worked extensively with Girard technical rep, and no real help. I hated the Girard and tried for 6 months to make it work to an acceptable level, then just bailed on it. The only solution is to replace it with either a tank heater, or better like I did a Trump Aqua-Go Comfort, which is an on-demand heater with a small tank so it works just like a tank heater with infinite volume. Expensive but worth every cent!

Thats TRUMA, not Trump. Autocorrect...

[foglght]

We had ours replaced last year and it has worked great ever since. It doesn't work so awesome when you use the pump (not "city" water), but it is manageable.

Lots of good things about it, but the drawback is that it always uses propane. Good news is that no matter how long the showers are, it doesn't use that much propane.

[HappyCamper86]

Originally Posted by foglght

We had ours replaced last year and it has worked great ever since. It doesn't work so awesome when you use the pump (not "city" water), but it is manageable.

Lots of good things about it, but the drawback is that it always uses propane. Good news is that no matter how long the showers are, it doesn't use that much propane.

This is just dumb... they should not put a hot water heater into a camper that cant run properly off the pump that is in the camper....

[blujay40]

Originally Posted by HappyCamper86

This is just dumb... they should not put a hot water heater into a camper that cant run properly off the pump that is in the camper....

I couldn't agree more and did have some concerns about that at first, but we quickly found out that was not the case for us.

We NEVER had an issue with the Girard using our water pump in our Eagle TT so it was up to the task. When using the shower (Oxygenics Body Spa shower head), the pump ran continuously. As for the kitchen/bathroom faucet, the pump would cycle slightly but never had a problem keeping enough of a flow to keep the burner lit in the Girard. Mind you, I had removed ALL water restrictors in the faucets/shower as well as made sure the filter screen for the pump was clean.

With the Truma, it doesn't matter because we can run hot water at a trickle and still get hot water regardless of whether it's the pump or city hookups.

[foglght]

Originally Posted by HappyCamper86

This is just dumb... they should not put a hot water heater into a camper that cant run properly off the pump that is in the camper....

So, I get that. I had problems with the first one. The second one doesn't trip the breaker shut off and I do get hot water, even off the pump. It just takes some getting used to with the setting and the water selection at the faucet.

When at a full hookup with sewer campsite, it is a dream. I can take as long of a hot shower as I want, unlike with a 6 gallon.

The drawback is that it takes a few seconds to get hot water. When you don't have full hookups, it is huge waste of water that just fills the tanks. Why on earth they don't have a larger grey tank is a mystery to me. Shouldn't the gray tank be twice the size of the black?

We are always more concerned with the fact they have a dinky 8 cubic foot fridge in a bunkhouse that sleeps 8-10.