Quote:
Originally Posted by madmaxmutt
1. Does it really work well?
2. Is it as great as it sounds?
3. How do you winterize one of those?
4. Is it gas/electric or just gas?
5. Are you glad you have one?
6. Any other experiences with it. . .
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I am prefacing this response with the assumption that you are using a Girard "tankless" on demand water heater since that is the one most commonly installed by Jayco in their trailers. I say "tankless" because I will bring that up in a bit. I also don't want you to take anything below as a condemnation of the Girard because when it works, it is fantastic. But for some, it just isn't the right "fit". So although I am going to be blunt and truthful with OUR experience, just know there are many others out there that thoroughly enjoy their Girards.
1. It can, and it might not. In my opinion, the Girard is based on "residential" type on demand water heater technology, only shrunk down to fit in a standard RV water heater enclosure. It has a single stage burner that is either on or off and requires a pretty specific amount of water flow/pressure to operate correctly. If your water pressure/flow is insufficient to make it operate properly, things like removing flow restrictors in the faucet/shower can help and it may be necessary to fill your fresh water tank and use the pump at times in parks where enough pressure/flow just isn't possible no matter what you do.
2. Again, it can and it might not. As long as you provide the Girard with sufficient water pressure/flow and follow the operating instructions, which basically says to set a temperature on the control panel and not mix any cold water in, once you have the hot flowing, don't turn it off until your done, and don't run water from another place in the RV that can affect pressure/flow, it truly does provide a great experience.
3. Never winterized ours when we had it, but as posted earlier, check out the manual. Easy Peasy.
4. Propane only for the burner and 12v required for the ignition. I have seen a post or two about someone retro fitting a small residential electric on demand water system to their RV's but that's asking a lot with an OEM wired RV.
5. Yes. We ordered our Eagle with the Girard knowing the up and downsides to having one so weren't really surprised by anything. And since we are seasonal and have no plans to boondock/dry camp which are two things an "on demand" water heater are not really designed for. They do waste a bit more water than a traditional gas/electric water heater does solely due to their design.
6. We had to have ours replaced twice in the first year. If you have ANY issues with it, call Girard directly vs. your dealer or Jayco. Their support was fantastic in our interactions with them and bent over backwards to make sure we got our issues addressed asap. With that being said, the first unit replacement was because the source water at our site in Florida was too warm to begin with and the unit kept overheating and shutting down. Seems it requires a somewhat cold water (but not too cold) flow to keep it from doing that. Also seen reports of those up north having issues where the incoming water was too cold and the Girard could never heat it to the set temp. The fix for our issue was to replace the ECO chip with a higher shutoff limit. They sent us a new unit with the updated chip in it and paid for an on site RV repair service to swap it out since we were 1500 miles from home. Second replacement was due to a faulty cooling fan that made a LOT of noise. Again, shipped a new unit and paid to have it swapped out on our site. Can't ask for better service than that!
But having to constantly deal with the Girard's limitations on a daily basis for months at a time as well as having to have it replaced twice in a year just got to be too much of a hassle for us. We just wanted something much closer to a "residential" experience and the Girard just wasn't doing it for us.
So after a year or so with the Girard and all it's quirks, we opted to replace it with a Truma AquaGo Comfort model, which is really a "hybrid" vs. a true tankless because it does have a 1 gal "mixing tank" that allows it to basically operate just like a traditional tanked water heater, but also provide truly unlimited hot water as well.
At the end of the day, as long as you operate the Girard in an environment and within it's design limitations, it can and will provide a great experience. But also know that the Girard on demand water heater is NOT necessarily a "step up" from a traditional gas/electric water heater, ESPECIALLY if your into boondocking, dry camping, or stay where you don't have full hookups and decent water pressure. There will be a "learning curve" in getting to know just how to operate it properly, and some minor modifications to your faucets/shower heads may be necessary (removal of flow restrictors or replacing shower head with an Oxygenics), because Jayco didn't bother to optimize your RV's plumbing to suit the Girard's quirkiness, which tends to cause a lot of frustration as well.
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