Tiny House Episode 26: Tiny Hot Water Tank (DTube Video + Article)

canadianrenegade (66)in #tinyhouse • 6 years ago (edited)

Now that we have been in the tiny house for a couple years, one component we have been impressed with is the RV hot water tank we installed. We can't say the same about all the RV appliances we are using though, we have had some issues with our RV furnace.

As I mentioned in an earlier episode, we hid the hot water tank under the alternating staircase. The tank was just a smidge too tall to fit under the raised floor so I actually had to make a slightly raised cap up under the stair to give the water tank extra clearance.

The cap for the hot water tank is visible at the back of the front two cubbies.

The hot water tank is an Atwood Model G10-2 which is a 10 gallon model that has a pilot light and does not use electric ignition. We decided against the electric ignition because we figured the simpler the hot water tank was the fewer issues we would have in the long run. It also meant we would be less reliant on electricity.

The burn tube for the tank basically runs through the tank in a U shape and the pilot light is at the bottom of the U. When I first installed the tank I was worried that it would be an energy hog but this design along with the foam insulation that surrounds the tank means that a lot of the heat from the pilot light is captured by the water in the tank before leaving as exhaust.

The burn tube starts on the bottom right and goes up through the tank to where it exhausts at the top left.

We have had to adjust the hot water tank once since we bought it because the pilot light was going out a lot for no apparent reason. At first I thought our pilot light was going out due to the propane to air mixture but it ended up being a loose thermocouple. The thermocouple would move ever so slightly which caused the electric current to drop enough that the gas valve for the pilot light would close and shut the water tank off. Thankfully, my brother does HVAC and knew what to look for because I would not have known to check that particular part.

As for performance, the tank works great. We rarely run out of hot water even if one of us takes an extended shower. You would think it would run out faster but we have a low floe shower head and faucets. The hot water tank does a pretty good job of making hot water on demand even though it isn't specifically built to do so.

All in all I think this is one appliance I would feel comfortable recommending to someone that needed a hot water tank that took up a lot less room than a conventional one.