Water heater

[Mborow]

I have a 2006 Providence 39s and am experiencing a electrical smell when my water heater is on electric operation. It has a smell similar to a new applianc3e smell. It is a GE16TE Attwood. The smell is most apparent in the coach near the water heater and washer dryer. We have not been using the washer dryer.

[HR2004]

Shut down the power to the water heater, via breaker or unplug from service panel and turn off inverter.. Now check for loose wires at the water heater.. Loose wires, cause fires.. If your breaker box is somewhere close to the water heater check for loose wires there also.. We had a loose wire in the service panel and after tracking down the smell found a melted wire on the neurtral bar in our service panel.

[Czar Of Poop]

Did you find the problem? When your water heater is on electric....does the water get hot? If not, the heating probe might be going out. Sometimes a sulfur smell can fake you out. Let us know what you find.

[Mborow]

water gets hot and once hot the smell goes away.

[Mborow]

checked wiring no loose not hot or disfigured wires.

[Cat]

I had a similar problem. Sometimes I could smell what seemed to be hot insulation/ wires. It was very intermittant. I eventually did find the wires at the back of the water heater had melted. The wire connection was not tight and caused the heat----very scary--they had gotten hot enough to start a fire. This connection is not visible with out removing a small black cover that is on the rear of the Atwood water heater. The 110 Ac wires on the outside the box looked good, under the everything was melted----- and it never popped the circuit breaker. Atwood said the problem is caused by the installing manufacturer, they had seen before.

[Cat]

Under this cover

[Mborow]

How did you get to the box.

[CLIFFTALL]

Originally Posted by Mborow

How did you get to the box.

My Bounder had a trap door underneath. It was under coated and hard to see. Three screws opened the access door.

[Cat]

My 2007 Bounder Diesel has a false floor in the closet above the water by heater. The false floor on mine just lifts off.

[mchero]

My HWH is mounted on the right rear corner. My electric rod is located on the backside of the HWH. I get to mine thru the bedroom closet under a hatch on the left side of the closet.

[Mborow]

Finally decided that the only way to get at the issues was to remove th water heater. Pulled it out today and found the exact issues that CAT had diagramed above. The back of the cover was now melted. The hot wire, wire nut was melted and the lead wire was burnt.

I can't understand how Attwood and Fleetwood can let these issue go w/o some sort of recall or at least and alert.

I also now developed a tank leak so time to replace the whole thing.

[Cat]

I also failed to water tanks-- they cracked right beside the weld that runs around the tank and holds the two halfs of the tank together. I believe it was caused by the water pressure fluctuations. The RV park has fairly high water pressure and I had a water pressure regulator. I tested the water pressure and found when not using any water it was at the setting of the water regulator about 50- 55 psi. But when I turned a faucet the pressure would drop to 15 psi. The pressure regulator would not allow enough flow to keep the pressure constant or fairly stabile. This caused the water tank to flex-(oil can old term) and crack. I purchased a 3/4 inch water pressure regulator from home depot 3years ago and have not had any problems since. Original tank lasted about 8 months full timing. Second tank lasted 4 months. Something to think about. Glad you found your wiring problem with no other damage.

[nothermark]

Off hand the melt job looks like a classic poorly installed wire nut. It probably does not happen often enough to generate any kind of special messages. The cover is intended to contain the kind of mess you found.