Suburban On Demand Hot Water Heater Not Lighting on Basecamp 20X

[Tkotlarz]

Hi all,
I have a 2022 Basecamp 20X that I'm having issues getting any hot water. I wanted to float the problem out there to see if anyone else had a similar experience or knows of a fix. It has a Suburban tankless water heater.

With the pump on, a full water tank, gas on, and the water heater turned on, I can hear the water heater ignitor attempting to click repeatedly, but it only blows cold air out the exhaust outside and no hot water. I"ve randomly gotten it to get hot water maybe two times over the last 4 months with probably 30 tanks of water testing it. I even brought it to the dealer and they got it to work on the first time randomly without doing anything different than me. They told me that sometimes I need to run the water starting with the outdoor shower, then the low drains, then the kitchen sink, then the shower to rid the lines of any air. Then I shouldn't have a problem. But, still not working. The problem is the same when I hook up to city water as well.

My guess was a bad ignitor or it's not getting gas. My heat works though perfectly and ignites. It's my understanding that the furnance and the hot water heater are the same unit so this confuses me that one works and the other doesn't. I've also turned on the kitchen burners beforehand to help get the gas through the system more.

Hoping someone can chime in on this. Thanks!!

[MyronM]

We’re out on the road with our new ‘22 BC20X also. We camped at Brownwood (TX) State Park for one night. Hot water was great. Next night at Thousand Trails Lake Whitney, hot water worked fine. Now at KOA Port Lavaca, no hot water.
We have spoken with Service at AirstreamDFW and followed their suggestions. Still no hot water.
Thankfully, the water temp allows for a tolerable rinse off after a day’s activities. A hot shower would have been more enjoyable. A visit to the dealership is planned for next week.

[Tkotlarz]

Thanks for your experience, let me know what you end up finding out from the dealer!

[MyronM]

We just returned home from a 1000 miles trip along the Texas Gulf Coast. No hot water for the last couple days. We visited Airstream of DFW today. Of course, the hot water worked fine when we were in their service dept. We’re planning our next trip soon. Hopefully, we can enjoy a hot shower!

[RottenJohnny]

We just got our 2022 Basecamp 20x in early May from DFW Airstream and have had zero hot water from the jump. I’ve checked all of the regular issues on my end. Hooked up to city water we can get warmish water for a few seconds, but I think that is just what is baking in the hose in the sun.

No fuse problem. Do I need the fresh water tank heater on to get hot water? My understanding is no.

Several calls to the dealership with zero help.

[Tkotlarz]

Yes no need to have the tank heaters on for the hot water to heat. That’s more for winter camping to keep them from freezing.

I ended up going to the dealer a couple times and finally last time they were able to get the hot water to not work and were able to diag it. 99% of the time the hot water didn’t work, but for some reason the time I went to the dealer, it worked and therefore couldn’t diag it. Go figure right haha. Turns out it was a faulty computer board on the hot water heater. Warranty replaced it and getting the new board installed this coming week. I’ll be in touch on if that solves the problem for good.

They did show me that there’s a reset button on the hot water heater if you take the rear bench side panel off and open up the cover on the heater box. This seemed to reset it and let’s the hot water work again. But it kept going out every now and then and had to be reset again. This reset is worth a try for anyone else having problems and may point you in the right direction of a bad computer board or not.