Water heater electric switch

[old turbo]

Anyone ever bypassed the electric swith on the hot water heater and installed one inside the rv? I find it strange that this is the only control that is not inside the rv. Is it any easy change?

[bncinwv]

I know there are some who have done this, Kerry was one of them, you may do a search of his posts??
Bingo

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Yep, Al did,

But, Ozz may have on his web site, WITH a timer. Check his sig line. (disclaimer: ole cloudy brain may not remember correctly! )

[exav8tr]

Many of us have said this before but we leave the switch on at the tank and use the breaker inside to turn it off of elect when we want. I think the switch is outside so you make sure you turn it off when doing maintenance/cleaning......

[garyka]

I also use the breaker switch on the power panel

[5ER]

The bad thing about having the only switch at the heater is that it is too easy to forget to turn off. I have burned up the element because of this while hooking up 120v to power the front legs when the battery was low. It doesn't take long to burn up the element with out water in the tank.

[Ozz]

Put in a switch, because a breaker is not meant to be used in that way. If you switch a load off using a breaker, it will arc inside, weakening the breaker. A breaker is a safety device, and overload protection.
Don't mean to be critical, but some may not know this.

[Waynem]

Well, every time I camp with electric I open the little heater panel, pull the wire and put the heater on electric. Then when I depart I reverse the procedure.

So what's the problem?

I know, I know. Just forget once, huh? It would be nice to have a switch next to the propane switch on the inside.

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

So, Wayne

What cha waiting for?? Wire one up, Al did this winter, we LOVE it, right near the area where the propane switch is, and so happens near the hot water heater. Flip, on goes the propane, flip on goes the electric.

But, understand your concern, forget once bout that water in the system situation, and you are buying a new bunch of gear for your hot water heater. SIGHHHH

[OntMont]

I have added a switch to both of the Montana that we have owned. Reasons? I found that we sometimes forgot to switch the heater off when we got back home, and about a week later I would discover that we had been heating the water in the Montana for no good reason. The light on the switch is a reminder to switch it off when it is not needed.
The second and more important reason is that it lets us manage power consumption when we are camped with 30 amp power, as we usually are in the summer time. We can easily flip off the WH if we are using, say, A.C., microwave, and something else at the same time.

The switch I used is a standard switch that is available at most hardware stores, it has a switch at the top and a red indicator light at the bottom to show that it is turned on. In addition to that, I added a small red LED available from Radio Shack in the face plate that is wired back to the actual heating element, this indicates when the element is actually drawing power, again, this is useful for energy management.

The ease of doing this will depend on how your rig is wired and plumbed, it is fairly easy in our '05 3670, but other configurations may not be as easy. (BTW, you don't need to by-pass the existing switch, just leave it in the on position).

We find it a useful addition, and I would do it again if I had to.

[Steve and Brenda]

There's a switch in most RV parts catalogs with the plate marked HOT WATER HEATER and a glow lamp to remind you its on. Camping World has a kit.

http://www.campingworld.com/browse/s...m?skunum=28795