water not too hot

[ninos]

On my 06 discovery when I leave the hot water heater on electric the water gets some what hot good enough to shower but It doesn't get really hot, I never really got to check the gas heater, Is It normal for this electric heater to work that way? thanks joe.

[DAN L]

what kind is it? atwood or suburban? 10 gallon or 6 gallon?
electric elements normally do not heat water as hot or as fast as propane burners, but imo the water should be hot enough on electric for a shower. mine is.

[Gary RVRoamer]

RV heaters come with a 120 degree thermostat, cooler than many home water heating systems. Often the propane mode gets a little hotter, but not much. It's a safety feature, since the distance from heater to shower or sink is often very short. 120 degree water is enough to scald.

[ninos]

Thanks to all of you for the advise, Joe.

[KSDP_PA]

check to see if you have a mixing valve on the water heater.

that might be letting too much cold into the hot water line.

[gripper]

In addition to the "mixing valve" mentioned above. Make sure that both the valves on your hand washing hose (located in your outside sewer hook-up cabinet) are closed. I had that problem once - turned those valves off and my water was "hot" again. Seems that the cold water mixes with the hot, before it gets to your shower or other sinks and dilutes the hot water.

Roland

[Clay L]

My model year 2004, 6 gallon Atwood water heater has a 140 degree F thermostat. The E.C.O. ( limit ) thermostat opens at 180 degrees.
The 140 degrees allows a longer shower because less hot water is needed to mix with the cold.

[Gary RVRoamer]

Atwood has higher temp t-stats available for some models of their heaters.

The mixing valve is used only on the "16 gallon" model. The 6 & 10 gallon models do not have it.

[pcurt23]

I had a similar problem. The mixing valve had become plugged. The fix was to unscrew the mixing valve and dump the junk out of the plugged port. The valve is on the back side of the water heater. I did not find the mixing valve problem until I had changed a lot of other components.

[ninos]

OK at a campground at 10:00pm and water heater really got worst at this time its just cold water so now I really had to star to look for the problem and sure enough it was the mixing valve it had a small piece of garbage on the cold side and the valve never closed. I fixed that but now I have to Buy a new hose because one of the hoses to the mixing valve leaks a bit and I also found the red knob on the mixing valve I could adjust the temperature of the water by turning, I did all that and now I have really hot water, thanks to all for the great advice. Joe