Atwood Water Heater Check Valves

[dewcpa]

I have a 2005 Monaco Diplomat with an Atwood W/H. After reading comments on the check valve problems I believe I have a similar problem. Good cold water pressure at all outlets and inconsistent pressure, sometimes not at all, for hot water. I have looked at the back of my W/H and easily see the outlet check valve at the top behind the bypass valving. I do not see a similar check valve at the inlet at the bottom right. I only see a 90 degree brass fitting. Am I missing something or could the inlet check valve be in this brass fitting? Will replacing the outlet check valve at the top fix my problem? Thanks for any information. Don

[wolfe10]

Don,

Welcome to the FMCA Forum.

It is quite common for there to be one check valve.

[dewcpa]

Brett, would replacing the outlet check valve solve my hot water pressure problem?The Atwood tech and the Monaco tech say there is a check valve on the bottom inlet. I just can't see there is one there. Thanks, Don

[wolfe10]

Don,

If you have verified that there is no check valve on the inlet, but is one on the outlet, that is sure where I would start.

[tbutler]

We had a check valve at the outlet of our water heater. The interior works of the valve were made of plastic. When the plastic broke, the remains of the plastic would periodically block the opening causing a low or no water pressure on the hot water side. We would have had the valve removed but the tech working on it was afraid he would break the water heater trying to loosen it. So he removed the "works" that remained in the valve. That ended our problems. He said we would have hot water problems, mixing with cold water but I'm convinced that the only real reason for that check valve is to allow you to winterize your motor home with antifreeze without having to fill the entire water heater. With the check valve and the typical by pass piping you can fill the water pipes cold and hot without having to fill the water heater with antifreeze. Being full timers we winterize by going south so we weren't worried about antifreeze. We never noticed any deficiency in the quality of the hot water after the valve was effectively neutered! A year ago we had a different tech work on the water heater which had developed a slow leak. He found the check valve was cross threaded, thus the difficulty in removing it. He got it out with an impact wrench and replaced it with a good (I verified, all brass) check valve so we are equipped better than new.