hot water heater not working

msballin

Member
May 30, 2008
259
Islip Terrace, Long Island
Boat Info
2000 340 Sundancer
Engines
Twin 7.4L Horizons w/ Hurth V-Drives
Good evening,

Curious if there is a fuse for the hot water heater as it is not operable. I turned the breaker on and I see no differential in the vold age gauge. Thank you.
 
Oh wow, this is a timely thread.

Two weeks ago, The Admiral "mentioned" (they don't complain) that there was no hot water. Since the boat is 15 years old and the water heater is buried in the bilge so packed packed with crap I can barely see around stuff much less get into it and perform work. I opted to just buy a replacement heating element and would tackle the 30-45 minute project the next weekend. Hindsight clearly shows I'm an Optimistic.

My assumption about the heating element being toast was completely wrong, more on that in a bit.

OMFG, apparently Sea Ray assembled the Water Heater, the 5/8" plywood board, and Vacuum Pump for the Head with lots of KY Jelly and some force. Why the hell they used three inch screws to attach 5/8" plywood to the sheet metal cover of the water heater will go down as one of life's great mysteries. Another mystery is the density of that plywood was gripping the screws with such absolute ferocity that I emitted a grunt for every quarter turn of the screw. (The rumors of rounded out screws being deep-sixed are patently false).

To completely insure the heating element was totally inaccessible, Sea Ray then surrounded the water heater with thick sewage hoses for the MSD.

Sea Ray did the right thing when they screwed the water heater down, it wouldn't be flopping around in the bilge. To accomplish that goal, Atwood came up with a cost-effective clever attachment system. Probably saved them millions. The little foot bracket that is screwed into the bottom of the boat is so cleverly engineered that it covers up the heating element. That's right, to replace the heating element, which is a 4 bolt proposition, practically requires the complete removal of the water heater from the bilge.

Let me be clear, I didn't remove the water heater from the bilge, just angled it around to where I could work on it. Remember the aforementioned vacuum pump, well there are these big, thick black hoses used for seweage that are constantly in the way of every tool you try to use, so even when I could get to the various parts, there was always hindrance. Also, to actually get the water heater out of the bilge would require the removal of four bolts from the exhaust riser and I wasn't going down that road. See, I have learned the simple stuff can exponentially expand to suck the life out of me.

To make a miserably long story longer, I ultimately spent about 5 hours in the bilge, found that the heating element was fine, but one of the button sensor thermostats had a corroded terminal, which led to heat, which lead to melted wiring in my gasoline engined bilge. F-me, I'm lucky, I immediately went out and bought a lottery ticket.

Continuing with my optimism, the vacuum pump has been running a bit longer than normal, indicating there is a Duck Bill job in my future. Fortunately, I now know how to remove the vacuum pump.
 
Makes me glad I re-arranged all that stuff in my bilge.........

Dale
 
Before starting to change any parts......apply the K.I.S.S. principle first.......look for a reset button on your water heater.....mine has one.....yours might as well.

good luck.
 
Having gone through last season without the need...or the time to change..the element in the water heater, I'm now prepared to tackle this. Assuming the element needs replacing, which I believe it does, and advice on locating and removing the present one would be greatly appreciated. Thx in advance.

Mike
 
Check everything carefully, particularly connections. In my experience, a bad element will blow the breaker, as it pulls too much power. No amps registering suggests bad connections.
 
Having gone through last season without the need...or the time to change..the element in the water heater, I'm now prepared to tackle this. Assuming the element needs replacing, which I believe it does, and advice on locating and removing the present one would be greatly appreciated. Thx in advance.

Mike

If you have the Atwood six gallon heater you would have to remove the casing to get the element out. That basically is the equivalent of R&Ring the entire heater.

Again if it is an Atwood, there should be a small rectangular over that protects the 110 connections, as well as the element. As somebody mentioned, check the connections particularly those to the element. These tend to rust up. The problem may also be the temp set point thermostat. I'm not sure what the proper name is on the Atwood parts list, but its function is to shut off the heater once the water is at set point. Set point temp is pre-set on this thing. This is an aluminum plate with the thermostat that sits in the front of the heater in physical contact with the tank. One of the AC wires goes to it and then to the element. If this goes bad, it can jamb open (as it did on our boat) and no electrickery gets to the element and no hot water. This would also give you no voltage change at the main breaker panel.

This part is pretty cheap and can be changed with the heater in the boat.

As an FYI anti-scalding temp is controlled through the pressure relief valve.

Henry
 
This was exact issue I found days ago. A corroded wire.. now fixing the connection and should be good to go.
 

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