tankless hot water heater

[beaglepup]

Hello group, just got signed up--wondering how many of the Pinnacle 5th wheel owners are having issues with their Garard Tankless Hot Water Heaters? Have you switched to a tank model to solve the issue? Spent a year dealing with varying hot water temps and flow. Thanks in advance

[Robbbyr]

Originally Posted by beaglepup

Hello group, just got signed up--wondering how many of the Pinnacle 5th wheel owners are having issues with their Garard Tankless Hot Water Heaters? Have you switched to a tank model to solve the issue? Spent a year dealing with varying hot water temps and flow. Thanks in advance

Welcome to the JOF, lots of good information here!

Regarding your questions, the Girard "issues" people complain about extend beyond just 5th wheel installations. I had an early-version Girard and I did swap it for a 10-gallon Atwood tank unit.

If you do an advanced search in the forum you will see many, many posts discussing the Girards. Some love them, some despise them. Satisfaction can depend greatly on your particular usage habits. Someone on full hookups willing to just let the water run full bore will have much better luck that someone dry camping and trying to conserve every drop.

[Kahoneys]

Just gave up and went with a 16 gallon tank. My replacement 2 choices were the 16 or the Truma tankless. Price won and spent $1000 instead of the $2000 for the Truma.

[Dskyward]

Welcome to the forum. I have the 2017 North Point 377 RLBH, similar to the Pinnacle, and we already knew ahead of delivery we were switching out the Atwood 10 gal tank and putting in a Truma AquaGo comfort model tankless water heater. As of 6/1/2016, It was $1200 and a $500 install up in Elkhart at a dealer. Should’ve only been a $300 install as told ahead of time, but there was miscommunication. I’m still glad to this day we made that decision and we are not looking back. All it takes to get the burners going is a min 0.4 gpm. Girard models cannot match that. We also switched out the factory handheld shower head for an Oxygenics Fury shower wand from Amazon that is so much better. They both make for a wonderful shower experience. Hope you get it worked out.

[T&M_Texas]

We have the stock tank less hot water heater in our 2018 377RLBH. (Not sure of the brand) No big issues or problems so far. When we have full hook ups all my girls like the endless supply of hot water as long as we have propane. With a tank less or tank you still have to wait for the hot water to get to you. Which, uses water and fills tanks while boondocking. The only thing I can remember we had to do one time is the water supply at the camp was so cold it couldn't heat it enough. So I had to turn the cold water on at the sink to take some away from the shower so it would get hot enough. I haven't done it yet but was going to adjust the handle or swap out the shower controls to a different type to regulate the water better separately. Personally I'm satisfied with a tank less for now.

[blujay40]

We dealt with our Girard in our Eagle TT as best we could but it is just a bit too temperamental in regards to flow, pressure, incoming water temp, etc. to really be a "turnkey" solution as a water heater for many.

After ours was replaced for the third time under warranty for this or that, tired of constantly changing the temp on the control panel, worrying about how much pressure/flow we had at a particular campground, not being able to mix cold very much without shutting down the burner, and reading all of the rave reviews about the Truma, we decided to make the jump.

It took some arm twisting on my part as well as climbing out onto a VERY small limb to get the DW to write the check, but even she now says that it was probably the best upgrade we have done.

It isn't cheap, but it gave us exactly what we were looking for when we decided to go with an "on demand" water heater. Unlimited hot water, set it and forget it operation, and we use our hot/cold water just like at home.

[Fingerlakes]

Friends of ours had the same problems and solved them by putting a regulator on the waterline coming into the camper to give more consistent water pressure. Maybe try that if you haven't already.