My wife Judy and I have been living fulltime in our '83 Southwind for about a year and a half now. Overall everything has been better than we expected, with the exception of one thing. Showers! We understood going in that sacrifices must be made with a 6 gallon water heater, we got really good with "Navy Showers". We adapted to washing dishes a little at a time, to the point that hot water became our biggest luxury.
We have talked about how we could rectify this situation. Should we install a solar water heater on the roof? Should we go with a tankless water heater? We chose the latter! Now we think a solar heater would be ideal, and living in the South, we know the water in the hose will get hot when the sun is shining on it... but, the sun doesn't always shine! So, we opted for the tankless system.
After much deliberation and research, we decided on a unit we found on Ebay, big enough for our needs, yet small enough to fit in our RV. We chose the Marey 10L LP unit. From all that we learned from other sources, this was exactly what we needed. We bit the bullet and bought it..$210 with free shipping. Now this is $30 to $40 cheaper than we could have bought it from the manufacturer, so we were tickled!
It was like Christmas when it arrived! We had already decided where to install the unit and pretty much had the list of materials to install it. Then we unboxed it. Well.... it's a little bigger than we thought, won't fit where we thought, gonna need more than we thought! Damn the bad luck!
We pride ourselves on our ability to adapt. So we decided on installing it in our main closet since it was nearest to our original place and it'll fit. However, we now had to figure out where all the stuff in the closet was going to go. So be it, we'll figure that out.
The installation went great....other than a few little problems,(always follow the directions as far as setting the distances from walls and such, experience is the best teacher, but if they tell you at least 1 inch from the wall, go at least 1 inch from the wall). This said, we now had unlimited hot water!
I got the first shower with the new heater, it was a spiritual experience! To be able to stand under the hot water as long as I wanted, almost made me feel guilty. Almost! Judy got the next shower, she spent twice as much time in there as me, I was quiet so she could enjoy the spirituality of it all.
It's amazing how something so simple can give the greatest pleasure. We recommend to anyone living fulltime to get a tankless water heater, Hell, we recommend to anyone weekending to get one!
Now all we have to do is find someplace for all the displaced closet stuff!
Peace
Comment
Good, idea on tankless, those are My plans also.
We have a tankless here at home and it is great. When we purchased the '77 Brougham, the water heater was cracked and needed to be replaced. We chose an EccoTemp portable tankless. Because it is for exterior use only, my husband set it up with quick-connect water and LP lines. We store it where the old water heater was when not in use. When we are ready to hook up we hang it on the side of the rig, connect the lines and we are off the races - or long hot shower. The price was right too, about $125.
one more time instant
instand hot water system
Hot Water
better off to install on demand install hot water system for about $100
Amazingly the new heater doesn't weigh near as much as the original heater and so far uses alot less gas. Other than the loss of storage space, we haven't found a downside!
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