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Old 04-12-2018, 10:46 AM   #1
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Tankless Water Heater

I opted for the On-Demand Tankless water heater on our 2018 North Point 351RLTS. Curious to see if anyone else has this type water heater and your experience with it.
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Old 04-12-2018, 10:49 AM   #2
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...also curious of others experiences, as I've often wondered about it. May I ask which model of tankless heater is installed/being installed?
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Old 04-12-2018, 10:59 AM   #3
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...also curious of others experiences, as I've often wondered about it. May I ask which model of tankless heater is installed/being installed?
It's a Girard Model# GSWH-2
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Old 04-12-2018, 11:57 AM   #4
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It's a Girard Model# GSWH-2
aka: Girard Tankless Water Heater Gen 3.

There are quite a few of us that still have it, had it (me included) and replaced it with a Truma (or other tankless model) or replaced it with a traditional tank heater.

There are also numerous write-ups and comments in this forum regarding the Girard and how to adjust/deal with all it's "quirks" to get satisfactory functionality out of it so I won't even try to go over all of it again.

Suffice it to say that there are some "adjustments" to be made when using compared to a traditional tanked heater, and they are NOT a good solution for water conservation such as dry camping, boondocking, or wanting to heat your water via electric to save propane. But if you stay/camp where you have full hookups, good water pressure and you learn how to actually use it within it's design limits, they can and do work well.
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Old 04-12-2018, 12:14 PM   #5
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Solid copy. I've got a 10 gal. Heater in my '18 Seismic and have no issues (yet), I just geek out about a lot of this stuff so I appreciate the good/bad/ugly experienced feedback.
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Old 04-12-2018, 03:12 PM   #6
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I have the same unit on a 2017 NP. It was quite a learning process. I had to switch the hot and cold lines at the shower due to the single lever control on the shower and had to adjust the flow control on the back of tankless unit (that is almost impossible to reach). Once I figured it out, we love it!
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Old 04-12-2018, 03:38 PM   #7
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Donna, did you reduce the flow..........I can't even see that valve inside the unit.
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Old 04-12-2018, 04:56 PM   #8
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Put me in the "once I learned to live with its quirks, we like it too."

The Tankless part, is probably more accurate on what we like.

I don't think we'll go back to Tanked, but I do wish the Girard had some improvements. If it dies, I'll probably opt for the Truma Tankless.
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Old 04-12-2018, 05:10 PM   #9
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Had a 10 gal electric / gas version and loved it. Went to a Girard Gen1 and hated every day of it. Went back to a 10 gal electric / gas and loved it. Now where back to a Girard Gen 3 and hate it as much as the Gen 1. That said, we'll put up with it until I've saved enough for a Truma or another 10 Gal electric / gas model. As soon as someone can tell me the trick to washing dishes and rinsing then with hot water, maybe I can live within it's capabilities.
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Old 04-12-2018, 06:23 PM   #10
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We also have one in the 2017 North Point. All in all it's pretty good. Wife likes it so that is enough for me.
Changed out the single lever for a double in the shower only us the hot side.
Only thing I noticed is my wife washes all the dishes and putts on one side of the sink and then rinses all at once .
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Old 04-12-2018, 06:27 PM   #11
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Hey AKRUEBBE
I can’t PM you back for some reason
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Old 04-12-2018, 07:27 PM   #12
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I believe I reduced it, it's very flow sensitive. If the flow is too much the burner won't turn on.
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Old 04-12-2018, 08:05 PM   #13
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I believe I reduced it, it's very flow sensitive. If the flow is too much the burner won't turn on.
I think the opposite is also true. Insufficient flow confuses it.

My wife has a habit of turning on the hot spigot "a little". That's a habit that I don't think works with our Gen 2 Girard. Full on, or full off with the taps.

At some campsites, if the city water pressure is too high or too low, the Gen 2 doesn't do well. In those situations, I just fill the tank in the motorhome and then flip the valves to shower off the pump and tank.

The other quirk with the Gen 2 is you can't mix in cold to lower the temp. You have to set the hot temp to exactly what you want and then shower with full hot and only hot.

Finally, I'm very unhappy with the Gen 2's ability to heat the water when winter camping. It really can't pump the BTUs into the stream well enough to take a hot shower.

9 times out of ten, I like it.
But every now and then.... Grrrrrrrrrrrr
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Old 04-13-2018, 07:26 AM   #14
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9 out of 10 times is the right answer. We too have it on our 2017 NP. Good flow is essential. Additionally, we have succumbed to the tankless are the turning point from "Camping to Glamping"...
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Old 04-13-2018, 07:39 AM   #15
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My 2c from the other side (tanked):

I wavered on the tankless and opted for a tank on my 377 build, and then last minute decided to change my order, but it was too late. They cut off build changes a few weeks before the actual build, be aware.

We have a family of 3, so there was the chance of running out of hot water, especially with a kid who lingers in the shower.

10 gal tank run on electric only, during the winter: we would run out after one and a half 10 minute showers.

Running it on electric and propane: we could get three 10 minute showers out of it, back to back, with no reserve.

Now that the weather is warmer, running it on electric and propane results in no loss of hot water with three 10 minute showers (we have reserve).

So:

Outside temps play a role.
Electric and propane together vs just electric on a tank system dramatically changes amount of hot water available.
Tank system is immune to pressure variations.

In the end, I'm kind of glad they could not accommodate my tankless build change.

FWIW.
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Old 04-13-2018, 08:27 AM   #16
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We have the tankless in our 2018 Eagle HT and so far we love it. The service guy told us during the walk through to set the temp and then only use hot only (as opposed to running both like normal) and that works perfect. I've also found out if you pause the shower head, it trips the heater so we don't do that anymore which is fine because we have no plans to boondock with ant regularity. My husband is currently "living" in our camper for work and he loves being able to take a lengthy shower without worrying about running out of hot water.
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Old 04-16-2018, 05:43 AM   #17
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We have a Gen III in our 2017 317RLOK and tomorrow will be the 3rd time it’s will be back in the shop in under a year. It’s been a constant problem, starting to regret going with the tankless.
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Old 04-16-2018, 10:08 AM   #18
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We also have the 3rd generation Girard tankless, and we had trouble with it at first. After reading some hints here, and having the dealer call Girard for some help when they were installing a replacement unit due to the dealer's error when winterizing--which led to the water heater needing to be replaced--we took it our Northpoint 375 out this past weekend, and it did fine. We were at Bristol for the NASCAR race.

The day before we left, the dealer had replaced the single-handle faucet with dual handles after the call to Girard. They got consistent hot water after that when testing it. On our trip, I couldn't get the water heater to fire and then realized that they had switched out our Oxygenics showerhead for the factory default showerhead when they replaced the faucet (I guess it all came together). Evidently it had a flow restrictor in it, which didn't allow enough flow to get the Girard to fire. I wanted the Oxygenics back on anyway, so we put it back on, and voila, hot water. We had the digital control panel set to 110 degrees F, but that was too hot for me, so I bumped it down a couple of degrees, and I had hot water throughout my shower. Even though we were on the water holding tank, I did not turn the water off and on--just ran it as if we were on city water, and there were no problems. We were able to run our white hose and refill our tank at the place where we parked, so running low on water wasn't a deal breaker. Could be problematic, though, if you truly have to conserve water.

Also, when testing out the new unit, service people had to put a pressure regulator on it when running city water to lower the pressure to 45 psi.

All in all, as has been said, the Girard seems to be very flow sensitive. There is a sweet spot where it will work. Flow that is either too low or too high will cause problems.
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Old 04-23-2018, 04:02 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AKRUEBBE View Post
I opted for the On-Demand Tankless water heater on our 2018 North Point 351RLTS. Curious to see if anyone else has this type water heater and your experience with it.
One trick I found is that when park water pressure was low and tankless heater operation was poor for my shower, switch to water pump and fresh tank. Better pressure = better shower.
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Old 04-23-2018, 06:15 AM   #20
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I have the same unit on a 2017 NP. It was quite a learning process. I had to switch the hot and cold lines at the shower due to the single lever control on the shower and had to adjust the flow control on the back of tankless unit (that is almost impossible to reach). Once I figured it out, we love it!
Could you please provide details on your flow control adjustment on the back of the unit?

Thxs,
Don
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