2021 Interstate 24GL in freezing temp, fresh water failed

[mike2016]

We’ve been using our van the whole winter mostly for ski trips.

This is a first time we had issue with the fresh water system

It was really cold and the wind chill probably drove the temp down to 20F or lower. tank heater was left on the whole time.

We woke up this morning and turned on water pump, a big splash of water came out the rear of the coach. It seems it’s from the water heater drain. It’s a drain tube right above the generator.

And water pump keeps turning but very small amount of water comes out of faucet.

Water heater also failed. It says “clear fault and cycle”. It never worked in freezing weather for us. During the day it works

[mike2016]

We probably have a broken pipe somewhere.
As soon as I turn on water pump it does not stop, and water keeps coming out the rear drain.

[Lily&Me]

Yep, I agree with that.

I can’t help you fix it, but I can commiserate.

Maggie

[Coffee Break]

It is designed to do that. The freeze protection opening should close on its own once it warms back up. Mine did the same thing. Look in the manual on the water heater.

[mike2016]

Originally Posted by Coffee Break

It is designed to do that. The freeze protection opening should close on its own once it warms back up. Mine did the same thing. Look in the manual on the water heater.

I was hoping thats the case, it will just “work” itself out

Is there any way to keep the water heater from freezing up?

It basically has not worked for us during freezing temp, every time it’s “clear fault& cycle” error.

We keep the water heater and tank heater on at night

[B. Cole]

Originally Posted by mike2016

I was hoping thats the case, it will just “work” itself out

Is there any way to keep the water heater from freezing up?

It basically has not worked for us during freezing temp, every time it’s “clear fault& cycle” error.

We keep the water heater and tank heater on at night

That's the problem with all the high tech stuff.Basically junk when brand new.Tell Airstream to R+R the new junky water heater

[Coffee Break]

See page 5 in the Installation and Operation of the Nautilus On Demand Water Heater (IW60) manual under Freeze Protection.

[mike2016]

Originally Posted by Coffee Break

See page 5 in the Installation and Operation of the Nautilus On Demand Water Heater (IW60) manual under Freeze Protection.

That's it. the freeze protection valve kicked in. the drain valve opened on its own when it reached 34F. as soon as i turned on water pump, it keeps flowing out the drain tube.

as soon as we got into warmer temp, the drain valve closed and is working properly again.

i guess i'll have to turn on the water heater prior to destination that is below freezing. otherwise it will refuse to work and give the error "clear fault and cycle power"

another thing that contributed to this problem - we turned off the furnace for the night. the inside temp in our coach got down to 34F when I woke up in the morning, it could've been even lower when we were asleep. in our previous trips, we always had the furnace on so we never ran into this issue.

how did we sleep in freezing inside temp? it was my wife's brilliant idea ...

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by mike2016

. . .
. . . as soon as we got into warmer temp, the drain valve closed and is working properly again.
. . .

Thanks for the update . . . good to hear that some of the new "high tech stuff" works as intended.

Happy Trails.