Water Heater

[be happy]

There have been some post lately about hot water heaters not working. I thought I would let you all know about my find today.

The 110 side of the HWH was not working but the propane side was. I did all the checking possible with no positive results.

Today I have Branson Mobil RV repair come to fix the problem.

On the back side of the WH is the heating element plus other wires. The wire nuts/and wires were melted and black. I was told that I was lucky no fire happened.

[16ACE27]

Yep, common Thor problem. Several threads in this forum about the exact same thing Never hurts to add one more to the list of "almost litigants".

[Skip 500]

Yikes!

[russncath]

Mine was the same, dealer repaired it. My question is what are they doing wrong to cause this?

[16ACE27]

Originally Posted by russncath

Mine was the same, dealer repaired it. My question is what are they doing wrong to cause this?

1 - Inattention to detail in performing the job
2 - No quality control checks

[russncath]

But what exactly did they do wrong.... I never saw my issue as the dealer repaired it. Left wire nuts loose etc?

[be happy]

I asked the repair guy about the whys and stuff. His answer was they used the wrong size wire nut. That was the start of the problem, he also stated that tapping everything together acted like an insulator.

[nosticks]

Exact same thing happened to my 2015 Four Winds. Filled unit with smoke. We started to choke, then the fire alarm went off. All this at 2:00am. When I saw your post I thought you copied my pictures.

Anyhow the use of wire nuts is not a good practice for a rolling mobile earthquake on wheels. The other place they are used and fail are in the Transfer Switch. Ask my how I know as that happened on my 2017 Freedom Elite. Same fire drill. I replaced all wire nuts with crimp on connectors.

[10scDust]

Our water heater will kick out main breaker if tried on 110vac.
The wire nuts look good.
I haven't proceeded further because LP works fine and I believe would heat faster anyway.
So for now, we do not use it on 110vac, it is on the back burner to be corrected.

Do you know much about the heating element?
Does it screw into the water tank, like one in the home hot water tank?

[Beau388]

Originally Posted by 10scDust

Our water heater will kick out main breaker if tried on 110vac.
The wire nuts look good.
I haven't proceeded further because LP works fine and I believe would heat faster anyway.
So for now, we do not use it on 110vac, it is on the back burner to be corrected.

Do you know much about the heating element?
Does it screw into the water tank, like one in the home hot water tank?

Yes, it is a standard water element used on small 120 volt point-of-use water heaters (1,400 watts - 11.7 amps).

[Billh]

My 2017 ace had same problem wrong size wire nuts pushed one wire down and poor connection was arcing SCARY caught it in time