Atwood Water Heater won't fire.

[richinny]

Originally Posted by Toronto_Guy

On the bright side, as a result of all the research I did to troubleshoot this problem, I now know quite a bit about my hot water heater! :-)
Thanks to all who offered their advice. :-)

ok, one more tip i learned.......
it's a water heater, not a hot water heater, unless your ambient temp is over 100 ;-)

good job!

[Toronto_Guy]

The worst part is that I teased my wife about wanting to bring a hair dryer camping, so she left it at home! ;-)

I was actually excited to be on full hook ups for the first time. I've had water and electric before, but not sewage. My wife's showers can fill up the grey tank very quickly. I had told her that she didn't have to limit her showers for once! Luckily, the campground's showers were just across the road from our site.

[dkray03]

Originally Posted by Toronto_Guy

Hello all,

I'm on my second trip in my 2008 Safari SE and I can't get my hot water heater to work. The red light on the switch in the washroom stays on. I have run the trouble shooting routine in the manual, and from the Atwood home page with no luck.

I'm not sure if this is important or not, but the red "no ignition" light on the circuit board of the water heater comes on and stays on the moment the switch in the washroom is put to the "on" position.

I've been outside watching the heater as my wife turns the switch on, and I don't hear or smell any evidence that LP is going through the system at all. Nor do I hear any noises or notice any sparks.

Earlier in the day, I towed my Safari in some fairly heavy rain for over 4 hours. The water heater seems to have gotten wet. Not sure if this would have any impact or not.

Some water has even got inside the plastic protective covering on the thermal cut off. Not a clue if this matters, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Does anyone have any suggestions that might get me up and running tonight? I'm not sure when I'd be able to get the unit serviced. Certainly not on this trip. Is there a way to start it manually?

I had a similar problem with a Nomad trailer. I even had an Atwood certified repair specialist look at it and he told me my circuit board (big black box in the water heater) had gone bad. He charged me for the labor as well as $140 for the new board. Over a two year span, i had purchased 3 of those circuit boards based on the previous repair claiming the circuit board would solve the problem. It didn't. Not long after the last board purchase, the trailer had to go in for some recall work and since this was a different dealership, I asked them to check the heater. The problem was a quick cheap fix.....the LP gas wasn't turned up enough to remain on. I am happy to say it is running great and there was no need for the nearly 600 dollars that was spent on all the replacement boards. I am not a technician and not diagnosing your specific problem just passing information for possible quick and cheap fixes that could have saved me a lot of money!!!