AVION Travel Trailers

Our Atwood On-Demand Tankless Water Heater- 50,000 BTU water heater has worked exceptionally well for us. It has the same spatial dimensions as a 6-gallon tank unit.

The trick is to determine the correct flow rate to keep the heater from shutting down in the middle of use. I have learned that this heater does not like low-flow faucets. It needs flow to keep delivering.

I have pretty much removed all low-flow metering devices in the faucet heads. The last one I need to do is the shower head. I've had to turn on the sink faucet to keep the heater from cutting out.

It will put out a ton of hot water once the system is properly calibrated.

You bet, Razorback!

Silverloaf

This is my first post since joining last week. So much good info in here. Your tankless water heater what model is it. I'm not sure if our 6 gallon system is good this RV is a wreck thanks to the previous owners Shenanigans with spray foam.

rmdunfee wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:34 pm Silverloaf

This is my first post since joining last week. So much good info in here. Your tankless water heater what model is it. I'm not sure if our 6 gallon system is good this RV is a wreck thanks to the previous owners Shenanigans with spray foam.

We have an Atwood OD50 on-demand water heater. We purchased and installed it in late 2017. It was part of a major restoration project. The heater is encased in an air-tight metal housing on 5 sides. The open side faces the outside, which is then sealed around the trailer's skin. The housing pretty much fit the envelope of the OEM heater with some minor fabrication work at the trailer's skin.

It puts out a lot of hot water but is finicky about maintaining a constant temperature. The water heater requires a minimum 1.5 gpm of incoming water. I've learned the individual camper-grade, low-flow fixtures do not deliver this minimum flow. My OEM Delta tub/shower valve is about useless for maintaining consistent temperature. I suspect the cartridge is bad. It might be cheaper to replace the entire fixture than buy a cartridge.

I heard a few years ago Dometic/Atwood were focusing on RV manufacturers and centers. From my recent experience, they have pretty much curtailed their consumer/retail technical support. Even customer service is impossible to reach. I see very few( if any) available on-line. That's not a good sign.

I suggest searching for another brand of water heater.

A good friend of mine runs an RV repair center. I visit with him at his shop from time to time and yesterday this very point came up. If he calls Dometic at 8:30AM, he'll be 6 or 7th in the queue. If he call after 9 AM, he's 30th.
My Precision RV550 Tankless has been good to me. All it requires is 0.5 GPM to turn on. I did have an issue with it a week ago where the heater wasn't lighting. Long story short, I back flushed it with CLR (We have hard water here - lime) and it cleared right up, no issues.

Hand in hand with that, Speaking of faucets, I needed to change the cartridge on my Kohler bathroom faucet, related to low flow. What I discovered was the water restrictor on the cartridge was beginning to plug up (Did I mention the lime?) , so I changed the cartridge and forgot to replace the water restrictor.