Kink in the aquahot hose

[Les1951]

I have had very little heat from the heat radiator under the sink and floor heat seems to be very ineffective. Today I found the issue with the aquahot. On the aft passenger side slider, there was a kink on the rubber hose which is routed under the drawer and sink area. To fix this I had to get the proper Pex tubing ( aquahot item ) and a 90 degree fitting also from aquahot. Normal sources for Pex do not carry the right size. Once the parts were obtained it only took about 15 minutes to do the job. Below are the before and after pictures.

[DebbieMH]

Nice job!

[Dr4Film]

Check out THIS thread of an Entegra owner where it took 4 years to find a kink in his kitchen Aqua-Hot heat exchanger.

Totally unacceptable quality control issues in my estimation.

However, glad that you found your problem.

Dr4Film ----- Richard

[Les1951]

I agree, it seems pretty fundamental to engineer the system properly, to ensure flow. I sent the pictures into customer service. Dave T said they are going to look at the production line and see if it is common. I am sure most 44B's will have the same issue. I was a little surprised to find the Pex tubing was not a standard over the counter dimension. Even more surprised to find Aquahot seems to be the only source !

[DSL417]

Not sure it is a quality issue...as it was a known problem several years ago and has been addressed before (particularly the DEQ, similar to the 44Bs)...I'd probably call it more of a design issue.

This particular location of kinking had been occurring several years ago and is a direct result of the design of a heat register being under the sink (where hot water also must run as well as drains for the sink and the dishwasher). This particular area, as cited previously, seems to kink only when the slide is out. When the slide is in, the hoses are not pressed into the front of the base of the drawers. I myself had the issue in 2013, couldn't find the kink, and then noticed that the heat worked when the slide was in and we were going down the road. The CoreyWP pulled the lower drawer when the slide was out and sure enough, it was flattened, and the heat in the floor and to the register the slide and to the front was failing.

That said, the issue seemed to have "gone away" for several years. The recent under the sink issue was certainly new, as far as I know, and it surprised many of us as the design most of us had seen would kink in that area. I think there is some level of challenge from an engineering standpoint, as you need a heat register in the middle somewhere in the front kitchen and living area, and that means it will always be on a slide. Putting the hoses on the sink side is nominally the best place....so it REALLY SURPRISES ME, that it took so long to know where to look. Maybe many new CS (and new owners) and new dealerships (with their general lack of knowledgable people and the interval in between the last series of issues contributed to this "new" generation of issues.

Hopefully the design engineers will get word of these posts (I think someone I know pretty well might suggest this next week in Middlebury) and look at the engineering approach again. Could it be the new coach design, as opposed to the "classic" where many of us knew where to look and how to easily solve the issue previously???? JMHO

[gizmo123316]

I would find it easy to understand from a manufacturing standpoint that 1/2" Pex is used for the water system and 5/8" pex is used for the antifreeze (heating) system. That way, hopefully the water system cannot be connected to the antifreeze system if someone was to mistakenly try.
5/8 Pex and fittings are available from large plumbing wholesalers, but not usually offered at the retail level.