Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
Jayco RV Owners Forum
 


Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
 
Old 05-27-2017, 09:29 AM   #1
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Crestview
Posts: 96
Unhappy Tankless Hotwater Heater Over It

I'm so over this tankless hot water heater! It hasn't worked properly at any campsite we have visited. I tried it at home and it worked flawlessly, used a regular garden hose at the house, don't know if the diameter hose had anything to do with or a higher water pressure at the house. I'm so disappointed with this product, especially after you invest so much money in this rolling condo. Had anyone done the switch to a regular hot water heater, and did Jayco pick up the tab? I know that, if I take it to the dealer they won't find anything wrong with it. I'm getting close to full retirement and planning a bucket list trip, I would hate to have to use that bucket to get hotwater from my next door camping neighbor. Frustrated in my Seneca 37 FS 2016.
Joe1mc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 10:22 AM   #2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: North Central Texas
Posts: 428
Hated ours too. Worked fine at times, then it didn't. Jayco replaced ours but only with a 6 gal. Another owner replaced his own with a 10 gal. Competitors offer the 10 gal as std equipment. 6 gal can keep up with demand if you run it in both gas and electric.
__________________
Walt

2019 Renegade Valencia 38RW
Gone: 2015 Jayco Seneca / 2010 Tiffin RED / ...
Toads: 2016 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited / 2012 Kia Soul
WaltW is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 11:33 AM   #3
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Sioux Falls
Posts: 293
tankless

I have NO problems with our Girard tankless. Just finished a 7 day star-gazing trip to Great Basin National Park, and never had an issue on camp water or pump only. Water pressure of 45 psi minimum seems to be the secret. We must be the minority.
__________________
Rick
Palm Desert, CA (formerly)
Sioux Falls, SD (for taxes)
2014 Seneca 37FS
2015 Wrangler Sport toad
red-headed wife
RoWest is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 03:30 PM   #4
Senior Member
 
javamon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Panama City
Posts: 567
Quote:
Originally Posted by RoWest View Post
I have NO problems with our Girard tankless. Just finished a 7 day star-gazing trip to Great Basin National Park, and never had an issue on camp water or pump only. Water pressure of 45 psi minimum seems to be the secret. We must be the minority.
Ditto on our experience. Just got back from a 10 day trip to Rockville, MD and the Girard worked flawlessly. An interesting note is that the first night we camped after picking up the RV in late April, I used the plastic pressure restricter supplied by JAYCO. The Girard worked terribly. The next day I attached my adjustable pressure regulator, set it to 50 psi, and it has worked fine ever since. I agree with RoWest that 45 psi seems to be the workable baseline pressure.
javamon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 05:01 PM   #5
Senior Member
 
NC Roamer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Fuquay-Varina
Posts: 884
Wrestled with the Girard generation 2 in our Greyhawk for 18 months. Kept our dealer informed as to its problems. They convinced Jayco to replace it with a 6-gallon Suburban. In the 14 months since, we've had zero problems with the Suburban.

We recently went to the beach for four days with myself, DW, grown daughter and two grandsons. The 6-gallon water heater kept up with all of us using only the state park's electric service. Did not light the LP burner.

Tankless may be okay with full hookups, but state parks rarely have those. We normally have water and electric, but not sewer at the campsite. To minimize inflow into the gray tank, we have to stop and start the water while in the shower. Our on-demand water heater had an annoying tendency to not restart on-demand.
__________________

2014 Greyhawk 31FK
2007 Honda Shadow Sabre 1100cc
NC Roamer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 05:27 PM   #6
Member
 
street rod 37's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Evansville
Posts: 50
I put a valve in front of the shower head at the base where the flex hose mounts turn hot water full adjust with the cold. Not had a problem
street rod 37 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-27-2017, 08:39 PM   #7
Junior Member
 
Dansy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Prescott
Posts: 13
It trigger all by itself to OFF on us once.....after looking at YouTube video I just pushed the little button in, no problem since.....not really impress by this system.
Dansy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2017, 12:03 AM   #8
Senior Member
 
Shakedown St.'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: Bozeman
Posts: 152
I replaced my tankless with a standard WH, and recently had a chance to try it out. We have a Greyhawk and went with a 10 gal Suburban.

I must say I cannot believe we did not do this years ago. I never disliked the Girard as much as my wife, but the standard WH is hands down the best mod done. I also removed the restrictor in the shower valve, and installed an Oxygenics shower head......finally a quality shower!!

We boondock a lot, so this move only made sense for us. We are now using much less water, and filling the grey tank much slower. I figure we can boondock 1-2 more days with this set up. If you always have full hookups the Girard isn't bad, but ours was unpredictable in terms of temperature and pressure whether we were hooked up or dry camping. I would still choose the standard WH now that I've made the switch! Only negative I see is the added weight on an already loaded Greyhawk.
__________________
Ryan

2015 Jayco Greyhawk 31FS
Shakedown St. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2017, 04:56 AM   #9
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Southern Illinois
Posts: 880
Interesting statement of pressure on the Girard tankless water heater. We basically live on the water pump of our unit all the time and have absolutely no problem with the tankless water heater. Many days we are boondocking and then some days , we just have electric and water. We have found it best to just fill the potable water tank and use our system instead of worrying as to what the pressure is of where we are staying.
__________________
Smooth Sailing,
Ric and Jan Golding
Southern Illinois
2016 Jayco Seneca 37FS
2016 Chevrolet Traverse
2018 Cheverolet Silverado
rgolding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-29-2017, 05:48 AM   #10
Senior Member
 
Crossingover's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: Treasure Coast Florida
Posts: 643
No problems with our Girard other than some very minor temp variations that don't bother us at all. We do use a household type brass water pressure regulator that allows full flow regardless of pressure setting. We do miss the flexibility to heat water with electric (to minimize propane burn) when on the pedestal however. I think the argument that the tankless wastes more water is somewhat baseless because even with a regular tank WH, the hot water still has to push the cold water out of the way that is in the hot water lines between the WH and faucet.
__________________
Rick with Lori and Two Pekes
'16 Jayco Seneca HJ Topaz
'13 Mini Cooper toad : Blackhawk All-Terrain tether
Crossingover is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-29-2017, 07:53 AM   #11
Senior Member
 
blujay40's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Michigan
Posts: 940
We have had a couple of "technical" issues with our Girard but their support staff has been absolutely fantastic in helping us resolve our issues with the unit. If you have issues, I recommend contacting Girard first.

As for it's performance, I have found with our Girard Gen 3 is that it's not so much about the "pressure", but rather making sure you have sufficient "flow" thru the unit. The Girard requires (according to specs) almost a gallon/min (.9gal/min) for it to operate properly. On sites with lower water pressure, we not only needed to make sure we had the hot wide open but also have taken out any water restrictors from the shower/faucets. That helped quite a bit to maximize the flow. That even allowed our Girard to work just fine at a site where they strongly recommended that we remove our filter screen from the inlet because their pressure was so low! LOL.

Of course, there are always those sites that have both low pressure AND low flow. In those instances, we just fill the fresh water tank and use the pump. Using the tank/pump also helps with sites that have extremely cold source water by allowing the water in the tank to warm more towards room temp so the burner doesn't have to work so hard to heat it up.

So far so good with ours.
__________________
2018 GMC Sierra 3500HD Denali 4WD LB SRW 6.6L Duramax
2017 Jayco Eagle 330RSTS
blujay40 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-05-2017, 09:05 AM   #12
Senior Member
 
SloPoke's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Kingman AZ and where our Seneca is today.
Posts: 3,112
Quote:
Originally Posted by rgolding View Post
Interesting statement of pressure on the Girard tankless water heater. We basically live on the water pump of our unit all the time and have absolutely no problem with the tankless water heater. Many days we are boondocking and then some days , we just have electric and water. We have found it best to just fill the potable water tank and use our system instead of worrying as to what the pressure is of where we are staying.
What ^ ^ ^ Walt Said!!! We do the same and love it.
__________________
Steve & Stacy with Jasper (Australian Cattle dog)
2015 Seneca 36FK
Custom 27' flatbed trailer hauling:
07 Toyota FJC & Yamaha Kodiak 400 ATV

SloPoke is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-05-2017, 09:35 AM   #13
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Wentzville
Posts: 272
It makes sense that, at any particular rate of flow, there would be a limit to the number of degrees that the Girard is capable of increasing the temp of incoming city water. We got hit with that when, for a couple of weeks, we were camping in Pensacola, where 118 degrees could be achieved and then, a few weeks later, we were camping in Kansas City, with significantly colder city water, and a maximum of only 108 degrees could be achieved. It SEEMED that temp of the city's water must be the explanation. Given the drop in temp between the output of the WH and the shower head, 108 degrees on the display is not high enough for taking a shower, whereas 118 degrees is completely acceptable.
chasfenwick is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-05-2017, 02:52 PM   #14
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Denver
Posts: 4,195
Quote:
Originally Posted by blujay40 View Post
Of course, there are always those sites that have both low pressure AND low flow. In those instances, we just fill the fresh water tank and use the pump. Using the tank/pump also helps with sites that have extremely cold source water by allowing the water in the tank to warm more towards room temp so the burner doesn't have to work so hard to heat it up.

So far so good with ours.
Same here.

While I'll confess to being annoyed that it took so long to figure out how to make it work (I certainly didn't spend this much time learning our *tank* heater), in the end, we're OK with it.

But it is a new chore for me at a new campground. I'll hook up the pressure reduced, then city water - then go in and check flow, performance. Any problems it's remove pressure reducer and recheck. If still problems, it's pump from the tank.

After all that, it's time to play with the temperature dial on our Gen II.


Last night's campground in Lyon's CO was pretty good. Everything seemed to be fine from the first setup. Only had to mess around with the temp dial.

Extra work - yeah...

But seeing a family of five take take long showers in a row? That was nice.
pconroy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-05-2017, 07:25 PM   #15
Senior Member
 
memphis02's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Southern Illinois
Posts: 409
We spent about 10 days between Scottsbluff, NE and the Grand Tetons and our tankless kept our family of 4 supplied with plenty of hot water. We did have to crank it all the way up in the Tetons as the incoming water temp was about 39 degrees. I also found that restricting the flow a bit helped boost temps for the steam bath lovers in my group.
memphis02 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-26-2017, 01:07 AM   #16
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Windsor
Posts: 73
Quote:
Originally Posted by rgolding View Post
Interesting statement of pressure on the Girard tankless water heater. We basically live on the water pump of our unit all the time and have absolutely no problem with the tankless water heater. Many days we are boondocking and then some days , we just have electric and water. We have found it best to just fill the potable water tank and use our system instead of worrying as to what the pressure is of where we are staying.
After two trips and reading tips on the forums we found the best solution is to use the water pump. We just fill the fresh water tank and use the pump as it has a steady water pressure. Taking a shower the trick is to put the hot water on full and add cold water to your comfort level. Do not turn the shower off, if you do, once you put the HW on it will be cold for bit so get ready for a little cold water wake up call. Yes I believe it does use a bit more water than a normal HW tank. But now you have as much HW you need for a shower and don't have to worry about running out of HW.
Once find the sweet spot, it works excellent.

Yes there are Pros and Cons to HW On demand. It took us a bit but now love it.

John
Boy
johnboy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-26-2017, 05:25 AM   #17
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Southern Illinois
Posts: 880
As I stated earlier in this post. We live on our onboard system and just fill tank with fresh potable water. I can keep track of grey tank and fresh potable tank usage this way. I do carry a spare water pump, just like we did back in the days of cruising on a sailboat. In 2 years of basically continuous use, I am on our 3rd water pump. All covered by warranty, but I did purchase the spare, to have on hand. Trade out is about a 40 minute job. Could and should be easier if I moved pump to a more accessible place. Another item on the "todo" list.
__________________
Smooth Sailing,
Ric and Jan Golding
Southern Illinois
2016 Jayco Seneca 37FS
2016 Chevrolet Traverse
2018 Cheverolet Silverado
rgolding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2017, 10:14 PM   #18
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Tucson
Posts: 9
We have the tank less WH in our 2016 Precept and have really disliked it. We camp in a lot of State Parks and other places W/O sewer connections and can fill our grey water tank in no time at all due to waiting for hot water to arrive ! We got the Updated gas valve installed and it helped very little. Is there a 10 gallon tank that can be swapped out with a minimum of re engineering ?
john.tucson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2017, 10:43 PM   #19
Senior Member
 
Shakedown St.'s Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: Bozeman
Posts: 152
Quote:
Originally Posted by john.tucson View Post
We have the tank less WH in our 2016 Precept and have really disliked it. We camp in a lot of State Parks and other places W/O sewer connections and can fill our grey water tank in no time at all due to waiting for hot water to arrive ! We got the Updated gas valve installed and it helped very little. Is there a 10 gallon tank that can be swapped out with a minimum of re engineering ?
Greyhawk here, but should be a similar install if you have the same space. We have a 10 gal Suburban installed, and really like it!
Shakedown St. is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-29-2017, 04:05 AM   #20
Senior Member
 
MFalcon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Belleville, Ontario
Posts: 134
I had continuous problems with the "thankless" hot water system, it kept scalding us periodically and without warning, regardless of what the flame setting was at, not to mention all the wasted water I had to keep collecting, in a jug, trying to get the temp right. I let Jayco know of the safety problem this was causing us and they replaced it with a 6 gallon suburban gas/electric, free of charge, since our rig was still under warranty. We took it a dealer close to us, not the dealer we bought it from, since that dealer was a four hour drive away. I emailed Jayco with the dealer info and made sure the dealer was on their approved list for our area. We have had gas/electric heaters in our previous units and they have always worked well, with little water wasted while dry camping.
__________________
MFalcon
Belleville, Ontario Canada
2015 Greyhawk 31DS
2013 Jeep Wrangler
Blue Ox Tow Package
Blog: https://mfalcontraveler.wordpress.com/
MFalcon is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3
Disclaimer:

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by Jayco, Inc. or any of its affiliates. This is an independent, unofficial site.


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:34 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright 2002-2016 Social Knowledge, LLC All Rights Reserved.