Hot water heater and boondocking

EW,

The pump or city water pressurizes they cold water line pushing water into the hot water heater on demand.

there are a few questions that Papacliff is not asking.

Did you have hot water last time you used the 5er?

Did you drain the water system after that use, say during sanitizing?

Did you turn the bypass valve on and not turn it back on?

Did you drain the hot water tank itself by pulling plug on tank?

Has propane been turned off for any period of time?

The first group of question concerns whether you will have any water out of the tank, or how much versus bubbles.  The second, whether it will be hot.

Sometimes during daring of system for winter or sanitizing flush, the hot water heater will lose a little water.  It won’t empty completely unless you leave the system low point drain valve open for hours, pull the hw heater drain plug, or open the hw pressure relief valve.  You must pull the plug for winterization, and it is the fastest way to get chlorine out of the hot water system.  You usually turn bypass valve after draining tank in winterizing.

The point of repeating the above is that if the he tank is not full, the 8-10 gallon tank will never have 8-10 gallons of hot water unless you purge the tank.  If the tank is too empty, the electric element will burn out and no longer function. The only way to get tank full is turn on pump or city water and open the pressure relief valve until water comes out steadily.  Don’y do this until after the water heater has been off for several hours or the hot water will scald you!

ok full tank.  If propane has been off a while, it takes a bit to flush out the old and get a full fresh blast to the appliances.  This may take several restarts at the hw heater, so  I usually turn on the stove burner and get it working first. It uses a lot of pressure and is easy to start and give you a line full of propane almost to the hw heater.  Then the hw heater starts right up or on,y takes 1-2 restarts.

I would do all this ant test for hearing the hw heater fire up before heading to track, turning off tge hw heater before moving.  Turning off propane is also advisable if not required before heading down the road.

have fun.