Framing for New Water Heater Opening

[silver-man]

Removed the old 10 gal Atwood. The PO had replaced the original and in doing so, framed out the new hole with 2x4's and putty stuffed between the interior and exterior skin. It's screwed in and held down with an angle bracket to the floor. Obviously all this has got to go.

Need advice and ideas about how to frame out the opening for the new water heater -- aluminum square tube?? or what?

And then I would guess patch the interior and exterior skins.

Help. . .

Here are some pix.

Thanks in advance.

[barts]

If the opening is the right size, you have to put the frame into place in separate pieces, unless you have the inner skins off.... that's how I did mine.

If the new opening needs to be smaller, you can prob. make up a frame and fit it from the back (since the interior skin opening is the original size) after patching the exterior.

How much smaller does the hole need to be?

Also, remember that if the skin on your trailer is not vertical where the water heater comes through, you'll need to shim the bottom of the heater since it's made to fit nicely in an SOB; I placed mine on a piece of 3/8" plywood and shimmed that.

- Bart

[silver-man]

Bart, thanks for the input. What did you use to frame it out with?

I'm in the process of figuring out what replacement water heater to buy, so don't know the size yet. The hole that's there now is a good bit larger than needed for the 10 gal Atwood I took out, so I'm thinking it will be bigger than whatever I put in there.

[barts]

Originally Posted by silver-man

Bart, thanks for the input. What did you use to frame it out with?

I'm in the process of figuring out what replacement water heater to buy, so don't know the size yet. The hole that's there now is a good bit larger than needed for the 10 gal Atwood I took out, so I'm thinking it will be bigger than whatever I put in there.

I used some nice boat framing scraps (vertical grain douglas fir, IIRC); it doesn't need to be fancy though. Something that holds screws well would be a good idea. The water heater is heavy when full of water, and the rear of the trailer can jump up and down nicely when traveling over rough roads, so making sure that the heater is properly supported from underneath should be a priority.

If you can fit a nice flush aluminum patch for the outside, that would look nice and be extra strong. A good wood frame will work well between the inner and outer skins.

- Bart