A Near Disaster - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Team Murc · RV-Dreams Family Member

A Near Disaster

The Bear II · RV-Dreams Family Member

Very Scary Glad it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Our Suburban is twenty years old. We use it mostly on electric and leave it on while setup in a RV spot. Now I'm going to rethink how we use it.

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

Whew, glad it wasn't worse. Thanks for sharing and we'll heed all recommendations.

igotjam · RV-Dreams Family Member

We almost always use our water heater on electric and turn it off when not in use. We have once or twice forgotten to turn it off when out....always concerned when we realize our mistake. Glad your situation was better than it could have been.

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

My first question would be after asking that you are alright and glad it was caught.......were you operating on 12 volts/Propane or using 110/electric hot water........the brand of the heater is not as important as the method..... this would help others understand what to look for and maintain to prevent it from happening

Team Murc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Lucky Mike,

Great point, guess I should have included more details.

We are parked on site for three months. We have been here since December 2 2015. We are on 50 AMP service and were using electric cycle at the time of the fire. We do leave our system "on at all times" unless we are planning to be away for more than a day then we will turn it off upon our return. No previous problems. I am also concerned that the breaker for the heater NEVER tripped.

-- Edited by Team Murc on Friday 12th of February 2016 10:23:36 AM

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

that what I was thinking.......I've seen it happen several times with the 110 element on.....the high limit T-stat is dislodged from the surfacemount and puts the wires into an overheat like a toaster grabbing the ground thru- the hose simuliar to a hot skin condition on the coach....the wires then act like a toaster and catch.....electricity like water will flow in the weakest and easiest path .......so the breaker does not see it..the breaker only sees overload or excessive power draw there was no back up of power because the water in the tank became part of the loop and carried it away from the coach.........I think you would find that the element was not wired into the GFI circuit correctly or at all

-- Edited by Lucky Mike on Friday 12th of February 2016 02:08:02 PM

John U · RV-Dreams Family Member

Team Murc,

For your own safety's sake I would also replace that breaker. What is fifteen bucks apx versus another possible fire?

John

ticat900 · RV-Dreams Family Member

John U wrote:
Team Murc,

For your own safety's sake I would also replace that breaker. What is fifteen bucks apx versus another possible fire?

John

its not the breaker. breaker only pops when draw overcomes the breaker rating.thats why electrical fires will and can and do happen. wires arch and cause a fire

but unless it archs to ground, breaker wont trip. an example of what iam saying try this one day have a load on a switch/plug and take the black wire off and touch the

connections manually with the black wire and see the spark. Keep doing this and the breaker wont blow but if in a flammable material area it could cause a fire to start

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm seeing more and more arc fault breakers in boxes. I should have looked in some of the coaches at the Houston RV show this past weekend, but didn't think of it (and the coaches were pretty crowded anyway). I wonder if that would help in a situation like this. Our water heater is propane-only, and I think is original 1993. I'm thinking about replacing it with an electric-gas model. I'll ask at Foretravel when I'm there in a month.

cherylbrv · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have electric/propane and it never occurred to me that I needed to turn it off. How long does the water stay hot in it, and how long does it take to heat up again? (I have no clue what kind of heater or the capacity, so I'm sure it will be difficult to answer that question, unless you have a similar make/model -- Terry??)

Glenn West · RV-Dreams Family Member

We stay in spot months at a time due to my work schedule. We use gas. It heats up so much quicker.

rodeojoe · RV-Dreams Family Member

Scary, and I am thankful that it wasn't much worse. Do most people have any type of fire alarms in their RV set up?

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

cherylbrv wrote:
I have electric/propane and it never occurred to me that I needed to turn it off. How long does the water stay hot in it, and how long does it take to heat up again? (I have no clue what kind of heater or the capacity, so I'm sure it will be difficult to answer that question, unless you have a similar make/model -- Terry??)

My experience with both Atwood and Suburban 10 gallon hot water heaters is 2-1/2 to 3 hours on electric to heat up and around 30 to 45 minutes on propane to heat up.

Howard · Host

When we had our Atwood 12-gallon water heater, we always left our water heater turned off until we needed to heat water. Linda was paranoid about having a heat source turned on when it wasn't needed, and based on your experience, perhaps that paranoia was founded.

Of course, we now have the Truma AquaGo instant water heater which we leave on the ECO mode. It's propane only and, in that mode, it only fires when we turn on the hot water.

Cheryl, when we had our Atwood 12-gallon, it took about 40 minutes to heat up on electric and 20 - 30 minutes on propane. In ours, the water stayed hot for at least an hour or two, longer depending on the outside temperature.

rodeojoe, smoke detectors, propane leak detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, fire exit windows, and at least one fire extinguisher are required in all RVs. I would recommend at least two smoke detectors and multiple fire extinguishers (bedroom, kitchen, outside compartments, tow vehicle or towed vehicle). Some even install aftermarket fire suppression systems in engine compartments of motorhomes and behind their propane/electric refrigerators.

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ours is pretty much always on unless we're traveling or boondocking. We do run it on electric unless we're boondocking or the groundwater supply temp is really low…then we have to turn the gas on to have hot water.

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

cherylbrv wrote:
I have electric/propane and it never occurred to me that I needed to turn it off. How long does the water stay hot in it, and how long does it take to heat up again? (I have no clue what kind of heater or the capacity, so I'm sure it will be difficult to answer that question, unless you have a similar make/model -- Terry??)

Stays warm for probably 12-24 hours depending on outside temperature and takes maybe 20 minutes to warm back up.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

cherylbrv wrote:
I have electric/propane and it never occurred to me that I needed to turn it off. How long does the water stay hot in it, and how long does it take to heat up again? (I have no clue what kind of heater or the capacity, so I'm sure it will be difficult to answer that question, unless you have a similar make/model -- Terry??)

Cheryl,

I just looked at a copy of the 2008 DRV brochure and according to it, your DRV has a Suburban 12 gallon hot water heater. In our case, we tend to use the electric side of our hot water heater and have been for almost 5 years while living full time in our DRV. About the only time that I've turned off the heater is when we know we will be gone from our RV for more than a day or two.

I may be wrong in my philosophy, but I don't care to keep turning off the hot water heater so much. After all, there is a tendency for electrical components to "go out" right after a surge of electricity from turning on a switch. As an example, in our Mobile Suites, we finally had one of the little lights burn out that are in either the bathroom or as the step light at the stairs into the bedroom/bathroom area. We've left those lights on 24/7, 365 days a year since we moved into it in April or May of 2011.

Terry