How to (Failures): Repair a Hot Water Heater in a Travel Trailer

The pump kicks on... It's ok, I'm using water, but why is it still on when I turn off the tap?

Something is was wrong, I knew it right away, something was wrong because the water pump should turn off almost as soon as I turned off the tap at the sink. I was doing the dishes inside our trailer like we would in a traditional house. Well maybe not like most, we use very little water by choice and by force. Living off grid'll do that to someone! What we wanted was to do the dishes with hot water for once... it was getting cold outside and the hot water would feel oh so nice on me cold little hands.

Like I was saying, the water pump should turn off as soon as on open tap is closed. Sometimes it'll keep running, but only for a moment. The pump pressurizes the tank and all the lines in the trailer, so it may keep running a very short little while to re-pressurize the system but it kept on running!!!

First thing I looked in the bathroom to check if we had anything on, then in the shower and then the last place was an outdoor shower handle with a hose... Everything was off but because I was there on that side of the trailer I noticed water coming out of the trap door for the hot water heater.

I opened the trap and there it was leaking from a pressure relief valve... my whole world collapsed, na just kidding I'm exaggerating but I did think Shit, there's another thing to fix now...it's never endin!.

And here's a closer look... yep and it's not just leaking, it's gushing out like it was opened all the way!

So, after a little search on the intra-webs, a few question to Uncle Googs and I quickly figured it out. The pressure relief valve was shot and it could be found at a local hardware store for a cheap price. I tried to open the valve with a couple tools I had on hand, of course they weren't the ones I was looking for because my tools seemed to have spread themselves far and wide and I was tired of searching. Little runts, always playing hide and seek at the wrong times... I'll get them real good one day, when they least expect it!

So here's what I started doing to replace the valve:

First I turned off the water pump and the heater, then I took off the heat shield, there are a few screws to look out for. The two at the top.

And four at the bottom. You see how a couple of them are sort of hiding? I had to get in there with a long skinny screw driver, there was a small space seemingly designed for it.

So far so good, this is easy! You see that space that's cut out from both sides of the middle plate? That's the space for a screw driver.

Now let's get that damn pressure relief valve off this HOT water tank, bring it to the store, get a new one, replace it and.... Voila!

The rust, I never thing about the rust...

I thought that c-wrench would do just fine, it fit, well it fit just enough to grab and therefore with a little force it should have turned.

Well, that sucked! I still have all my knuckles intact, as a matter of fact I didn't hurt myself at all but that old brass fitting sure took a hit... I didn't see that coming, I thought it would have been much stronger!

In this next photo It looks like some kind of miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex attacked it... Nope, I just tried to use channel lock pliers. Also, do you notice how far the little flat cover is from the fitting, that tells me the spring inside of the valve is shot. Not only that but you could see it after I broke off part of it with the c-wrench.

Conclusion: I couldn't take off the valve, either because the rust bonded it to the tank or I wasn't using the right lubricants to try and brake it up a bit. I wanted to try it again when it got cold, I thought the metal might shrink a little compared to the scolding hot that it had been enduring from the water.

In the end I am glad it didn't come open... I wasn't thinking straight, SCOLDING HOT PRESSURIZED WATER??? Yeah it could have been really really bad.

Just don't do this please, I got lucky and we might even take this as an opportunity to move this operation to an on-demand water heater, they're take up less space and they're much more efficient!

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