20 Best Water Heater For Rv (2023 Updated)

Ok per phone call of received item with damage, got the wrong door for installation. ( was sent replacement of proper size for $10 differences. Fixed after call in, missing items, sent after calling in.

Sealant and screws ). Upon installation of item as stated, I would try and see if item was OK, this weekend was the soonest it could be done due to weather outside. Installation was let’s say not to bad with proper extras.

Upon installation and hooking straight to battery NO Power after inspection notice no fuse in unit, went and got fuse to install, and still no power. PLEASE Send Different unit as I may get this problem taken care of thanks for your time on this matter.

You cannot add cold water to the hot water in the newest system. If you try to add cold water to adjust temp it will beep loudly and give you the E3 error code. Manufacturer says temperature must be set in advance and only hot water used.

This is not a good system as everyone does not want the same temp shower and shower temp is not hot enough for dishes. Yes you can change the temperature at the control before someone gets in the shower but if you forget to change it back the next person may be too hot when they are already in the shower and they cannot add any cold water.

Lousy system. Also you have to let the water run for it to get warm and that is filling up the holding tank.

You’ve probably seen videos of an installation being quick and easy so I want to describe my experience-After removing the old 6 gallon tank type water heater the hole was quite a bit larger than the new unit required.

No surprises here and filling in the gaps with wood was relatively easy. Then came the depth issue- the old one was recessed into the side of our motor home about 1/2″ for a flush fit so I made an adaptor/spacer ring out of 1/2″ plywood.

Next I found that the factory door kit was a bit too small to cover this newly filled area. I made a trim ring out of white “Formica” type laminate and attached it to the skin of the motor home with clear silicone caulk.

Compared to making and installing these parts the gas, water, and electrical connections were a breeze. Bottom line here is that you might be taking on more of a project than expected so plan accordingly.

If they become available factory trim rings and oversize doors would save a lot of work. (hint to manufacturer)After using the unit for several months I have a few observations- It will put out a lot of hot water and works best with a constant high rate of flow.

This could be a drawback if you are depending on a limited water supply. While running water at low flow the heater either doesn’t kick on or it will cycle hot to cold. During these cycles the water heater sometimes gave off a propane oder so I tried it with the cover open.

This eliminated the smell so I cut some additional venting slots in the metal door. Oder gone. (another hint to manufacturer)Also be sure your partner is able to change propane tanks. They inevitably run out in the middle of your shower.

Overall we are pleased to have unlimited warm water and it is a huge improvement over the old 6 gallon tank type unit.

WARNING! DO NOT BUY GIRARD. Have yet to actually use mines even once. Company blamed me! In addition, NOONE, ANYWHERE has the water flow sensor in stock!!! Everytime time i call back to these different distributors i get the samecresponse of we’ll PROBABLY have them in next week.

Its been at least a month now!! Other in stock part, the water line, has been paid for but never shipped!!! Thank God im not on the road!! Heed my warning!.

I cannot get the heater installed until a week until a friend who fixes them. I have to tear down the whole front bed to get opening up to get a friend of mine so he can get in the front. I am 71 years old and have a brace on my left leg so I would not to get in the small area and be able to do it myself.

This was same model and the “easy” installation proved it – of note, you will need the brass fittings for the hot/cold outlets on the back and I recommend heavy duty thread tape instead of plumbers putty (that still leaked) until I used tape.

Same wiring as old so easy to replace. I also had to adjust the pressure relief valve – it was aimed at the gas chamber, so that was a bit of a pain but all installed, tested and ready to go!.

Had to replace our old water heater in the RV. Found it here and went ahead and purchased it. Make sure you measure everything carefully including the depth. Ours was a little tight but we managed to install.

Had to redo the plumbing me and the electrical for it. Endless hot water for everyone. Usually have three or more people enjoying the outdoors and to be able not to worry about running out of hot water.

Well you get the picture. Fast shipping and delivery. Great customer service. Buy from here with no worries.

Unaware I had defective 12 gallon with a pin hole which eventually got worse when I purchased my Cameo new. It eventually was discovered and I bought the Surburban Tankless. This is an excellent water heater.

It will be 2 years old May2022. Finally I purchased a very useful appliance.

For the money not what I expected. There is a minimum water amount like most on demand water heaters but this one also can get to much water and it wont heat the water. Also super finicky on how much hot water you have to adjust for.

Install was easy was really surprised there have installed some that take awhile.

The purpose of buying the SW6DE, instead of just the SW6D model was to have two modes of heating water. The old unit failed intermittently last trip, got to take a couple of cold showers, not good. This unit was an easy upgrade, relatively simple installation with only adding three 120 Volt wires for electric heat.

Water heater was 3 feet from electrical panel, so no need to run extensive wiring. Very satisfied with the product. Suburban has reliable products, the old one was a 1998 model, so extended service is what I expect.

The installation instructions were clear. Rick Nock, Texas.

Puled out gas only to install this. Substitution is simple and we wanted the option to use electric when in campground. Having gas only might save on purchase price, but gas only operation eventually costs more and is more problematic than operating on electric.

The part arrived and we had a friend of ours remove the old unit and replace it with the new one immediately! It worked like a charm – a week without hot water is not fun!! I am so glad we went on line and purchased this unit from your company !!!!! You not only saved us having to run all over creation to try to find a unit – hiring somebody to put it in the trailer (easy installation) – but you also saved us at least $300.

00 by purchasing it from you. It is amazing the mark up these small trailer supply companies charge for items that you have no choice but to pay their outrageous prices for !!! Thank You again and I have told all my camping buddies about your company !!!!.

This Whale 11 gal water heater is a good replacement for Atwood EHM-11 10. 5 gal which is no longer available. Box says Whale. Warranty card is addressed to Atwood Corp. Actual dimensions measured with.

Tape 8/23/2020 15&5/8”W x 15&7/8”H x 18&1/2”D w/o screw down plates. With 2&1/4” screw down plates Depth is 23”. Plates can be bent up flat against case to decrease depth. Went in easier on my 1999 Silverton 422 MY than the old EHM-11 was to take out.

Put it in with screw down clips facing Starboard & Port This heater can run on 120volts or 220 volts & also has ports to connect to engine coolant & run off engine heat when boat is underway making starting the generator unnecessary.

Very well made, identical swap for our 1996 Seaward model. Easy to install and working great. Hoping it last as long as the first one. We would recommend this product. Worth the money if you want an identical swap.

Get what you paid for.

I’m sure I left feedback and you are welcome to re-post. This water heater is phenomenal! I just got around to plumbing it and powering it up after install to the fifth wheel. I was astonished at the speed this little gem heats.

Less than ten minutes easy. Granted its summer but still! I replaced the gas unit that came with the RV. I am also able to run this off my inverter that I also installed and although its a significant draw, it is only for ten min if disconnected after.

Very light weight and easy to handle. It was a good call on my part to go this route. Very impressed! Shipping was as could be expected for a package this size and the price was worth every penny. Thank you Northernmarine for your service.

Pun intended, I am one happy camper!.

Installed in/on an old ’77 Unitrol/Robertshaw 6 gallon water heater that finally gave up the ghost (propane pilot light no longer stays on). Wish I’d known about this hack years ago! We live in our old small ’77 Komfort trailer full time in an RV park/campground (life is hard for so many now, it’s sad!).

electric is included and unmetered so this hack is a no-brainer! The element rod threaded directly into the drain plug without any of the adapters. To install/make room for the thermo I had to cut away/peel back some of the sheet metal tank enclosure, which was the hardest, most irritating part.

Still haven’t tidied it back up lol. The thermo adjustment is very sensitive, settled on 120°F setting- anything higher gets scalding hot! Seems like a decent 10 minute shower is easily doable, but we haven’t yet tried that because we also have full facilities nearby on site.

Works great for all the daily domestic hot water needs, dishes etc. Takes maybe an hour to fully reheat the tank if we run it til cold, but we rarely need to. It also is completely quiet, don’t even know it’s there.

Once in a while I hear the thermo click off or on, that’s it! Huge improvement over the finicky, unreliable, dangerous, complicated, annoyingly loud roar of the propane setup! Tell ya what. you don’t realize how much of a luxury on demand hot water is until you have to do dishes and wash your face with 36°F water in the winter lol! brrr! ??Now I hardly need to drag one of our big heavy propane tanks down and back up the mountain by ebike trailer because we barely use propane! Just for the oven and emergency/power outage backup heat.

I can *highly* recommend this setup. if you are living in a park/site full time with free/cheap power like we are, you need to do this hack!.

This works really well. It’s great not to have to burn propane when I’m plugged in at a campground or using the motorhome for guests at my house. A couple of things to keep in mind if you install one: The thermostat block that you stick to the side of your tank that allows this to regulate heat, has a built-in safety shut-off if it detects the tank getting hotter than it’s supposed to.

That’s great, but if you are not plugged in, and you heat your tank with propane, and that makes the water get hotter than your Hybrid Heat setting, it will pop that safety, and the next time you try to heat using electric, it won’t work.

You will have to push the safety button back in (on the top of the thermostat block). Also, when I installed mine, I drilled a hole to feed the wires inside, then I used silicone to seal the hole. I didn’t think about leaving enough slack in the wires to make sure I could unscrew and remove the probe when/if I wanted to ever drain the tank (for winterizeing, etc.

). Fortunately, as it turns out, I left JUST enough to barely get the probe out without having to cut away all that silicone and release the wires. Make sure you think of that ahead of time and make sure whatever you do to secure the wiring or seal it up leaves enough slack to remove the device when necessary.

I had recently looked at this product for my rv for a hot water solution as there was no propane or battery attached. I have a 1982 Sunline. The unit had been refurbished at some point, and those to items not replaced, which was fine for me.

Other items were removed that used propane also. I watched very helpful You Tube vids to help with the decision, as they showed more than one company. I went with Camco, as I was more satisfied with what I observed.

The information, not only from the vids, but the instructions very straight forward, and I had the unit installed in short order leaving the water temp at the factory setting of 120 degrees. I placed the switch inside, so the only slight change I made was to go to Lowe’s and get a cover switch plate, widen the opening a little to accommodate the switch, attached it to the wall, done.

I also had a plug in box close by the power cord to plug in to. I filled the tank, turned it on, walked away for about a half hour, and came back to hot water. Though I’m in Florida where the water never really gets cold, it makes a nice addition to my unit.

Rather than try to figure out which parts of my 10 year old HWT were causing problems, and needing a service call to repair, I decided to buy a new one. Great decision – the old one removed easily – two water connections at the rear thru an access panel inside, the propane line and three wires from the outside.

The new one needs the brass water connections installed – if you can’t remove the old ones, new ones at Home Depot are a few dollars each. Slide the new unit in, connect the three wires, the propane line, and the water connections and you are done.

I trust I will get at least 10 more years of ready hot water.

I bought one first time to use we were on vacation. mother board was no good. contacted titan supply and was told Atwood Domenic would contact me. they never have and being on vacation we need it to work so we went to camper world and bought a new mother board for $165.

00. tried to get reimbursed from titan supply or Atwood Domenic to no avail.

Only one I could find to fit hole from previous water heater. I could find some cheaper but not to fit the hole. Happy with purchase.

When hooked up the water heater functioned properly. One glaring omission was that the metal plate with safety and lighting instructions was missing. It is shown clearly in the picture of the heater.

I drilled out the rivets on the old heater, removed the safety plate and drilled holes and pop-riveted the plate to the new heater. The safety instructions are important. The new heater had no sheet metal diverter to deflect spray from the pressure relief valve so I transferred the diverter from the old heater to the new one.

Again, it is shown in the picture. There was water accumulating under the heater inside my travel trailer. After much investigation I discovered that the drain plug/anode was leaking and the water was wicking through the slotted retaining ring around the drain plug projection back under the heater and out through the bottom weep hole in the insulation.

The old heater had a foam sealing ring around the tank drain to keep this from happening. I transferred the ring to the new heater and put more pipe tape on the plug to solve this problem. Again, the picture of the product appears to have the foam sealing ring.

If no sealing ring is available I would recommend putting silicone on the retaining ring to seal it since it is almost impossible to keep the drain plug from weeping if you drain the tank regularly. There was no sealing ring for the gas line even though the ring is clearly shown in the product picture.

I used the old one. Finally, there was no fiberglass insulation between the end of the tank and the flanged cover so there will be considerable heat loss. I tried to use the fiberglass off of the old tank, but finally gave up and left it without any insulation.

If you know what you are doing you can make this tank work properly and the price is right. Hopefully my input will be helpful to you.

I installed the Suburban with DSI two years ago. It worked fine for the first year and a half, then the circuit board pooped out. It was easy enough to fix, but the board costs around $100. Then, after changing that board last year, it decided not to spark again so I bought the highly rated Dinosaur board.

It plugged right in, but apparently the problem was something else. I tried cleaning out the pipes,tested the electrical. and said forget it, Im buying the one that you gotta light manually. Thia simple model has lots more positive reviews, less to go wrong and it bolts right in so the installation was simple.

The unit came as I thought it would. It fit in the original hole with little modification. There was a little problem with getting the gas line into the cramped little area, especially when you don’t have access to that side of the unit , very bad design.

the one I took out had a hard line coming from that area to the back of the heater, way easier hook up. And I guess I thought for that kind of money you would get the outside flange and door supplied with the order.

In the instruction manual the show the flange and door to cover the outside hole, but of course thats extra i guess.

Great little water heater. My original lasted 20 years and finally developed a leak and I replaced it with this new one. Installation was fairly straight forward except the large copper propane line was difficult to lineup in the confined space.

On the propane settings, this water heater makes more than enough hot water for a long shower.

Just installed this water heater in my camper. I don’t have electricity hooked to it yet. I need to go camping to hook it up. The propane part works. The price was very good! Thank you.

Decent quality but way over priced. Should sell for no more than $450. 00. The only reason I bought it I wanted to insure that it would fit as it was identical to the one I replaced. It did fit and the plumbing and wiring was all compatible.

Bob.

Had this installed about 4 months ago. only use electric. it’s stopped working 3 or 4 times & then just starts working again. now it just doesn’t get hot at all. 1300$ to get it ordered & installed. Wow just wow.

I won’t recommend it to anyone. believe that.

Original heater had electronic ignition, and old controller gave up the ghost. No sense buying a new board when we could get an excellent discount on a new heater at C-W. Nice that the footprint hasn’t changed in those 23 years.

Super simple to swap.

My wife doesn’t care for quick showers. Decided to go tankless and continuous with the hot water. The overall experience from purchase to install went great. Hardest part was getting the 6-gallon water heater out because it was so stuck in the hole with chalk.

Once that was out I cut the opening an inch higher and slide in the new one very easily. Wiring was simple and a couple additional 90-degree shark bites was all I needed to set the water lines. Turned on the power and open a faucet and hot water is constant and hot.

This purchase was made to replace a RV 500 water heater in our 2012 Tiffin Phaeton motor home. All connections are nearly the same so it was a quick job. After I got it hooked up and turned the water and power back on it started right up.

Nice unit and Tiny Houses provides excellent service. No complaints here!.

The dhwh worked perfectly. I’ve been using it for a week straight and have no complaints. Other than you need to widen the hole in the side if your trl is a very easy install. I didn’t do it myself i had it done for that just in case thought.

Overall the water heater is great. I would recommend it to all. As a matter of fact the place that installed it for is doing just that. They loved it and the hot water output they said was the best they have ever seen for an rv.

My friend bragged to me about his new iw60 water heater in his travel trailer ans I trusted his judgement and my own further reading. I went ahead and purchased the unit along with the correct depth vent and controller and easily installed it.

I have endless hot water in my bus to RV conversion now. I would think the tank version are outdated by this.

I’ve been a RV technician for 36 years customizing and repairing them. Suburban make the Best appliances as far as I’m concerned.

After watching a YouTube video on how to install heater it was very simple.

i bought this about 6 years ago at denault’s ace hardware in carlsbad calif; the reliance 6 gallon water heater just failed; trying to get warranty dispensation is impossible: they want me to go back to my 2014 files and dig out ‘proof of purchase’ though their records say it was manufactured 8/2013; there is no such thing as the ‘reliance water heater company,’ rather an ‘a.

o. smith’ answers all calls; when i asked if they engineer their products to fail at the end of the warranty period, they really had no answer– apparently they do engineer their products to fail at the end.

I installed my water heater a couple of days ago. Everything went well except I tried to be prepared, and purchased necessary connections based on the old 6-gallon water heater connections, but found the inlet, and outlet connections were 3/4″ pipe vs the 1/2″ pipes on the old water heater.

It would help to list the various connection sizes so that the purchaser could get everything before the actual installation. I want to thank Walmart for expediting my delivery date to my home. I was first told it would not ship until 9-7, but I received it 9-1, thanks again.

I am very pleased with the product, and the delivery.

Was extremely easy to install, fit perfectly in place of old unit. Doesnt require as much time to heat up and stays heat longer. I really enjoy this purchase. Thank you.

Bought this water heater for a brand-new RV we are building so haven’t used it yet. But I did start it up and it ran so that is all I can say for now.

I was able to do the swap myself and it is perfect.

The unit is installed in our 1996 Airstream, fits good, waiting to plumb it later in our renovation. We just purchased a Nature’s Head from y’all, it’s on the way! Thank you.