Tankless Water Heaters

[tonycoachmen]

We are considering buying a Berkshire 390 FL motorhome. It has everything we want and is reasonably priced for a diesel. But, there is always a but, a concern has come up over Forest River's use of the Girard tankless hot water heater. I am familiar with tankless systems used in the home but this is the first time I have seen one in a motorhome. My main question centers on the Girard user manual instructions which say that in order to regulate the temperature of the water you turn on the hot water only and regulate temperature by reducing the flow. It is explicit in saying that you should not turn on the cold water tap, but just turn the hot water flow up and down to regulate the temperature. Now I could be wrong but my experience with water taps is that when you turn them down you get less water. Knowing that showers in rv's do not generally supply a great deal of water to begin with it seems that turning it down will leave less water to rinse with.

Does anyone have experience with the Girard tankless system? Does anyone have any thoughts? Can anyone see why using the cold water tap to regulate temperature would not work?

tony

[hermanmullins]

Tonycoachman

Welcome to the Forum. Your best bet on an answer would be the Factory.

www.greenrvproducts.com

Are you a member of FMCA? If so have you considered joining a Chapter? Great fun and wonderful people.

[ClayL]

A few people have posted on other forums that they were very unhappy with the Girard system. In some cases the water flow at the desired temperature made it dificult to take a shower.

I haven't seen any posts praising it but I could have missed them.

[rrlowther]

We purchased our 2001 Safari Zanzibar DP 40' back in April. One of the first things we did was replace the standard 10 gal hot water heater with a Girard tankless. Now to say it was a smooth transition would be untrue. BUT! We finally got all the kinks worked out (the shop that did the installation of the first unit didn't do it correctly).

As for the water flow, the Girard has two settings for water temp. Low and auto. And yes you adjust the water temp by adjusting the water flow. If the water temp coming into the heater is higher you can use the cold to temper the tempt of the water. Now having said that, when we got our Girard replaced in Phoenix (a genral manager arrived at our lot where we were staying, in a Jag no less, swapped out the unit for us, took about 20 minutes), he also gave us a new shower head. It uses air to increase the pressure of the water coming out of the shower head. Once he was done I took a 30 minute shower and I have to say it was awesome! Good pressure and consistant temputure.

Since we got the unit replaced in Phoenix and ever since it's been a dream! We always have hot water and are not limited to shower time. We use our coach for work. So we are often in the coach, parked, for three weeks at a stretch plus travel time. I've had several other campers ask about it and we're always willing to show it off.

The bottom line is this, we don't have to continually heat up the same water. It's on demand. We don't have to wait between showers for the water to heat up. It's very convenient and works like a charm. Although we had numerous difficulties with the first one, Girard was really helpful by sending out a tech while we were in Vegas after overnighting replacement parts, which they paid for. And then finally just replacing the whole unit and upgrading our shower head. We love ours.

To your specific question about using the cold water supply to regulate temp. THe unit works based on water flow. The more water you push demand through the unit the less time it has to heat it. As I mentioned above, if the water temp coming out of the ground is higher you can adjust the temp to low. It works best on auto though.

I hope this helps. If you have other questions about it feel free to send me a PM. I'm pretty familiar with the units now! LOL