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Old 05-30-2006, 12:58 PM   #1
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1978 24' Argosy 24
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Inline vs. conventional H2O heater

I'd like a review of the inline water heaters. How much do they cost to have installed? Which models are worth considering and which ones should be avoided? Do you need an RV specific unit or will any one that's designed to run on Propane work?

Weight saving is one reason I'm thinking about a tankless heater. How hard is it to drain a regular water heater tank? Or is this even a good idea? I can see if you forget to fill before turning on it could be a disaster. Besides saving weight I anticipate leaving my trailer at ski areas unattended for a week at a time and draining all the water will probably be mandatory. We also do a lot of mountain biking and having lots of warm water would be a real bonus, especially if we had outside access to it. Would adding an outside facet and/or shower be something that would make sense at the same time of changing over the water heater?

-Bernie
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Old 05-30-2006, 01:11 PM   #2
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Precision temp RV 500

I had a Precision Temp RV 500 installed in a Caravel about 10 years a ago and I loved it. It's the only tankless water heater I've found that is DESIGNED for RV's. Others I've seen will "work" in RV's but have some sort of "not recomended" clause.

If I ever need a new water heater, this is the one I'm going to get.

Here's a link www.precisiontemp.com

Mike
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Old 05-30-2006, 02:42 PM   #3
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What a great idea. I'm looking into the price right now.
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Old 05-30-2006, 02:54 PM   #4
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Just an added note on the RV 500....I had mine installed years ago when Camping World was marketing them and it was between $900 and $1000 installed as I recall.

The guy I sold my Caravel still has it and the water heater is still working great. It's a quality product, save's a lot on propane and will make hot water as long as there's fuel and water flowing through it.

Mike
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Old 05-30-2006, 02:57 PM   #5
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I don't want to disourage more responses, but there is quite a bit of information already laid down.

If you do an 'advanced' search and look for threads with "tankless" in the thread title you will find nine previous threads. Lots of good information.
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Old 05-30-2006, 03:58 PM   #6
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The old threads do have some interesting ideas but not much practical experience. It's nice to see the RV-500 has been used and gets high marks. On the other hand a G note for a water heater will put that project on the back burner so to speak

Also, if I replace the water heater the inline unit would have to go in the same place. It seems to me this is already vented to the outside so I don't understand the issue regarding carbon monoxide or oxygen depleation. I believe our '78 Argosy 24' has a six gallon tank and the RV-500 requires the space of a 10 gallon heater.

The Bosch seems to get nothing but negative reviews. I'm surprised because I've always thought of Bosch producing first rate, albeit expensive products.

The Excel sounds like a good option. Has anyone actually used one?

http://www.excelamerica.com/calentadores_eng.htm

The previous threads bring up the CSA certification. It's actually CSA/US which means they used a CSA lab to do the testing and included all the US test requirements. It's very common to use CSA for "UL" testing and CSA has many test facilities in the US. There are a number of other labs which can also test to the applicable UL standard. This change in the safety testing buisness came about around 8-10 years ago and it's a very good thing. Previously it was basicly a monopoly market and service was slow and expensive.

Hard to tell from the advertising copy but it appears the Excel unit can be preset for a nominal water temperature. However, it won't adjust so if flow rates are varied a lot you might see some difference. Not a big deal to me, just need to be aware when someone is in the shower to a least warn them you're going to turn on the sink facet. Not a whole lot different that most homes.

Other brands I only saw passing mention of were names like AquaStar. The previous threads seem to mostly be over a year old. Tankless or On-Demand systems are slowyly gaining acceptance here in the US. I've seen them touted a Home Dopy recently and according to the Excel website you can get up to a $300 tax rebate. Their was also mention the Excel could be picked up on eBay for ~$300 which could make this a near zero net cost deal. Now that's getting down in my price range
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Old 05-30-2006, 06:14 PM   #7
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I guess it's a matter of personal choice if you want to install a ventless (Excel) heating applicance in a small confined space.

All the CSA and UL approvals mean is it's approved for general use, meaning houses. The mention of being used in boats and RV's doesn't mean it's approved does it?

I would stick with an RV approved appliance like the RV500.
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Old 05-30-2006, 10:22 PM   #8
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UL and CSA generally review a product to applicable standards based on the intended use. One thing they ask for when preparing a proposal for testing is advertising copy to see what standards are applicable.

I did a quick search of UL and CSA and find no mention of any standards for RV water heaters. There is an ANSI standard which Precision Temp mentions but it specificly states that it's for Vented water heaters.

In general I don't believe there are any standards with the weight of law behind them for RV appliances. Most of what the industry uses is building codes for manufactured homes (trailers).

I'm not concerned with the Excel design being ventless. I intend to "vent" it to the outside anyway. In fact it will for all practical purposes be an outside installation when installed in place of the old tank design. I think it will be safer since there's no pilot light and it only kicks in the burner when you use hot water. The tank design on the other hand is burning gas while you're asleep.

I did some checking on deaths from propane appliances. Far and away the leading cause of death was CO from heaters. I've had problems with CO detectors in my house going off from moisture in the air. So many false alarms I took it out. I think I'll investigate CO detectors for marine use and also install a propane detector in the trailer. Getting pretty far off topic here regarding tankless heaters. That was the problem with most of the threads I turned up searching the archive.
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