RV Hot Water Heater Cover :

Walking around the RV, you should be able to locate the hot water heater cover. Of course the hot water heater is BEHIND the cover, but I thought for a first pass in the pictorial guide, I’d just have you identify where the hot water heater is. The idea being that when you are shopping for an RV, you can walk around the unit and really identify almost every single thing you see in the RV. This should help you become VERY familiar with an RV without too much effort.

The cover on the hot water heater is pretty easy to locate. Usually on the drivers side of the RV and it usually has a large rectangular cover with vents cut into about 1/4 of the panel.

RV52 has a more complete set of RV Hot Water Heater Information Pages over on the RV52 Master How To section.

Here are some notes on RV hot water heaters that should help you out.

• RV hot water heaters are pretty small for most RV’s : 8, 10, & 12 gallons. I think if you had a very high end motorhome you might have something more like a home hot water heater, but that would be rare.
• RV hot water heaters are special.
  • They can use DC voltage to run their electronics.
  • They can heat their water in more than one way ( our current RV can use electric or gas )
  • Of course you would not use electric to heat hot water when boondocking
• By virtue of having a smaller hot water heater, you’ll save on water.
• Because you can easily turn the hot water heater off and on, you can save on heating hot water.
• I wrote a really nice article about updating the igniter from pilot light only to electronic/DC ignition.

The darned mud daubers love to build nests behind our hot water heater cover. You can get covers to prevent mud daubers from getting in.

You’ll see lots of people talk about having to put anode rods in your hot water heater. If it is an Atwood, you don’t have to do that. It is baloney.

Here a picture of the hot water heater cover :

RV52 has a more complete set of RV Hot Water Heater Information Pages over on the RV52 Master How To section.