Electric water heater kit

[thompwil]

Howdy,
Oddly enough our 2018 Sunstar did not come with an electric water heater. I was thinking of installing one of the electric kits available. Has anyone installed one of the kits? If so is it working well?
Thanks
Bill T

[RandyLee]

I installed one in our last unit that had a 6 gallon heater and it worked great.

[frayfl]

The elect water heater kit will void your warranty.

[BirchyBoy]

Mine didn’t come with one either. I’m considering a full swap in the spring. Maybe go with an Atwood that doesn’t have the rod.

BTW is yours a 13.5k or 15k BTU A/C unit?

[thompwil]

Originally Posted by frayfl

The elect water heater kit will void your warranty.

Good point. I wondered about removing the anode rod too. Maybes a swap for another heater would be better.

[powercat_ras]

The electric retrofits you can buy to replace the drain plug have only 400 watt heating elements. The 8,800 BTU Propane heating mode is equal to about 2000 watts of electric heating. So be aware that your water heating time and recovery time on electric only will be 5 times what it is on propane. Also consider that you can buy a LOT of propane for the $ 100 for parts plus several hours labor to retrofit the electric element.

If your water heater is Atwood it uses an aluminum water tank with no anode, and a plastic drain plug. The aluminum threaded hole is very soft which is fine with a plastic drain plug, if you accidentally cross thread you ruin the cheap plastic plug. If you install a retrofit heating element be sure to make sure not to cross thread as it will be the tank you will ruin. Also suggest you apply anti-seize dope to the heating element threads so the dis-similar metal of the heating element and tank don't corrode together making it impossible to remove.

Note the heating element installation instructions emphasize not to over tighten the retrofit heating element. Note it is now your drain plug so you may have to remove it to winterize every year depending on where you use and store your RV.