Hot Water Heater OFF while underway?

[al1florida]

Originally Posted by TATANKA01

Just a reminder to all:

Propane tanks should be turned off prior to travel as it is the law in many states. There are still some states where vehicles with propane are prohibited in tunnels.

Imagine the explosive power of open flame or propane in a tunnel

Just my two cents - Love you all ! ! !

I know of NO state that has a law stating propane in RV's must be off during travel. There are a number of tunnels which require propane to be off when traveling through. There are a few tunnels which do NOT allow RV's with propane to travel through.

As far a danger: The propane line after the regulator is at about 1/2 PSI (pounds square inch). You engine fuel line has about 40-60 PSI. Far more dangerous. The worry about fire danger should be about the engine fuel line, which hardly ever gets mentioned.

[NeilV]

Originally Posted by Eagle5

Hi Neil,
I suspect that Winnebago has had fewer warranty repairs with simpler systems. For example, the refrigerator runs either on 120 VAC or Propane. One of the motorhomes I rented from Cruise America had a tri-power refrigerator that would run exclusively on 12 VDC when the main motor was running. Sadly, only the 120 VAC mode actually functioned.

I will try to check my hot water heater for the items you enumerated. Given that these hot water heaters can function going down the road, I suspect something is still wrong.

Perhaps the Propane-only hot water heater is the most reliable type. As Scotty said after sabotaging the Excelsior, "The More they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop-up the drain."

Thanks, Eagle5

The More they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop-up the drain

The Standing Pilot Propane only water heaters are usually in the base models to keep the sticker price low however DSI and MotorAid are often the norm in coaches like my Winnebago Adventurer and many other models. Since I do have MotorAid to heat the water while traveling I only leave the water heater turned on when I am just going to spend a day at the beach or other more local venue while on longer drives I do not need to have the switch for the gas burner turned on since even if I did engine heat would end up keeping the water hot enough that the burner would not come on after the engine warmed up to operating temperature.

Of course if your out where there are consistently high cross winds that are so bad that they threaten to remove paint you would probably need to worry about more than whether you should turn off the water heater especially when driving a light high profile vehicle such as a Class C Motor Home. You would also have to worry about awnings, slide toppers, vent lids and Air Conditioner Shrouds.

On the Propane Only Standing Gas Pilot Water Heaters one of the most common issues is the pilot going out making the installation of an electric pilot re-lighter a very common fix which is very similar to the flame sense igniter on a DSI unit only it is running all the time to relight the pilot if it gets blown out. When servicing Gas Fired Anhydrous Ammonia Air Conditioning Systems I did install a great many Electronic Pilot Re-lighters with the most common at that time being made by Fenwal.