Water heater - leave it on, or use as required?

[terryl]

Over the past 6 years, I have turned on my water heater whenever I wanted hot water, i.e. shower in the morning or the need to wash dishes. Once that was done, the switch was turned off.

On my last 3-week trip, I ran into some problems early, where the switch would not engage the water heater. After some amateur-level playing around with fuses and cleaning contacts with still no results, by co-incidence a few hours later, I hit the switch again and everything was working. At that point, I left it on for the rest of the trip, and had no further problem.

Realizing that there is still a problem that I need to look further into, do most of you turn the heater on or off "as needed", or just hit the on switch and leave it for the duration of the trip, and for you full-timers, is it always on?

[bluepill]

Since the water heater adds heat to the inside of the RV when the water is hot, probably not so good to run it all the time in the Summer.

[NLOVNIT]

IMO, the heat the tank puts out is so miniscule it would have no impact on the interior temp. We leave ours on all the time, either electric or propane (depending on whether or not we have electric hook up). I will turn it off if we leave the coach for any length of time though.

L-

[Lt Dan]

Ours stays on electric all the time when we are in the coach, winter or summer. It is located in the rear bath area under the washer/dryer and I can not feel any heat output from it.

[Old-Biscuit]

I want HOT water WHEN I want HOT water...not 15-20 minutes later


Water heater gets turned ON when we set up and turned OFF when we break camp


Simple........got more important things to do

[Mudfrog]

We leave ours on when at camp because we never know when hot water might be needed. The WH on ours is directly under my sock drawer and I do notice that they stay a teensy bit warmer than everything else inside the camper. Definitely not enough to affect cooling.

[plasma800]

Originally Posted by Old-Biscuit

I want HOT water WHEN I want HOT water...not 15-20 minutes later


Water heater gets turned ON when we set up and turned OFF when we break camp


Simple........got more important things to do

X3 same here

[SarahW]

Originally Posted by Old-Biscuit

Water heater gets turned ON when we set up and turned OFF when we break camp

^^ This.

[CARLnJANIS]

Electric is on while we are in the trailer. We turn it off when we leave the trailer and at night when we go to bed. No need to heat water when we don't need it.
We turn the gas on in addition to the electric when we are about to take a shower or wash dishes for better hot water recovery.

[yeloduster]

Been RVing with something that had a hot water heater since 1972. I always turn it on when I leave home and turn it off when I get back home. The exception...I turn it (and everything else) off when fueling.

Never a problem and always have hot water.

[Issykid]

Originally Posted by Old-Biscuit

I want HOT water WHEN I want HOT water...not 15-20 minutes later


Water heater gets turned ON when we set up and turned OFF when we break camp


Simple........got more important things to do

I’m of the same mind set.

[Tha_Rooster]

I leave electric on, never needed gas.

[jsmmonaco]

i do not trust campground electric, and i don't like wasting propane.........so we turn on our hot water tank when needed............it heats water so quickly, that it allows time to catch the end of that tv show, have another smoke, or finish your beverage of choice...............when we are on "pole power" and both air conditioners are running, i won't tax the system any harder by leaving the water tank on electric.............fridge stays on for the entire trip, on propane..............besides, if you heat up the water tank, that water will still be warm or even hot, the next morning for washing you hands or dishes............

[Bigd9]

On when we leave the house, and off when we return back home.