On our initial outing in our new (used) 2018 Freedom Elite 30FE, I discovered that the hot water heater was inoperative on electric (It worked fine on propane).
I read on another post about bad circuit boards on some Atwood water heaters. The circuit board is easily accessible from the outside panel so I figured I try that first. I called Atwood ( now Dometic) and explained my issue and told them the circuit board on my unit was emitting a high pitched squeal in addition to the electric side not working. They sent me a new circuit board at no charge.
Unfortunately this did not fix the electric not heating. The only other obvious issues that could cause my problem were a relay or the electric heating element. Both are located on the BACK of the water heater and not easily accessed. Since we bought the camper used, there was no warranty even though it's less than a year old, so I decided to try to fix it myself.
I'll share here my adventure.
The hot water heater on my 30FE is located under the far corner of the L shaped kitchen counter. On one leg of the L is the kitchen sink and on the other leg, the Stove top/Oven. it can hardly be seen by looking through the cabinet doors under the sink. The Hot water heater sits on a plywood shelf above the propane furnace. A lousy location for both. I wish they'd make the people that design these things have to work on them first to teach them to consider the mechanic that has to fix these things.
I order to access the hot water heater relay and heat element, I had to remove the cooktop/Oven
Even then it was difficult to even see the box covering the relay/element.
The water lines and drain line for the kitchen sink blocked access. I decided to disconnect the hot and cold lines from the tank to give me a little room to work. First, I closed both bypass valves to isolate the tank from the rest of the water system. I then learned that removing the outside drain plug does NOT completely drain the tank. I still got a lot of water when I removed the cold water inlet line.
The box that covers the relay and heat element had thick black tape holding the lid on. Once removed I was able to quickly see what was causing the malfunction.
Apparently when the hot water heater was wired in the camper, the 115vac wire from the source to the relay got pinched and chaffing caused the insulation to wear through until it arced against one of the terminals of the heat element. I found the arcing when i tried to remove the element terminal so I could ohm check the element (it checked out OK). The relay was ok too. The only real damage was a burnt through wire.
I replaced the wire, hooked everything back up and now have hot water with either electric or propane.
I don't know when this wire arced, but it must have popped the breaker and smoked the wire some. Whomever reset the breaker either didn't realize the cause,or didn't care.
Anyway, it;s fixed now.
Linear Mode
