Currently we’re just outside of Santa Fe, NM. Yesterday I got a sunburnt sitting outside at 8:30 am (80 degrees)… by noon the winds were 50 mph… by 4:00 PM it was snowing. Craziest weather! One of the only “creature comforts” we miss while living full time on the road is a nice warm bath on a cold evening. With a 10 gallon holding tank for hot water, it’s rather difficult to enjoy a long hot shower in an attempt to mimic soaking in a hot tub. Plus. if/when we all need to smell decent for an outing… 10 gallons goes real fast.
What does one do when the Mrs. needs a hot shower and there ain’t no hot water? Optimize. Hot water heaters for homes are rather huge and heavy. Additionally, using propane to heat water is not the most efficient us of energy (and get’s costly). One of the other pet-peeves is waiting for the water to heat up. When you have a 10 gallon holding tank… you either leave the heater on (which means your consistently using propane to keep that water hot) or you turn the heater on 30 min before you plan to shower. Personally… I’m not that calculated to plan my showers 30 min ahead of time. There had to be a solution out there. Through my research I came upon Precision Temp. A Tankless Hot Water Heater company for boats and RV’s. BINGO!
They claimed the heater was “On Demand Hot Water”. That sounded nice. It also weighed 1/3 what my existing water heater weighs… that’s a huge difference for us with trailers. Every pound saved is a pound of increased storage capacity. This would give us an additional 100 lbs. So what about propane usage? Check this out… it uses propane to fire up… but immediately kicks over to electricity. It has 55,000 BTU’s (this is the highest hot water output available).
This was too good to be true. Endless hot water, 100 lbs. drop in weight, and massive drop in propane usage. I was in! I called the sales guy at Precision Temp… told him the model of my existing hot water heater… he matched the sku’s and overnighted me the new heater. Truth be told, I didn’t install the heater myself. I didn’t want to run the risk of hooking up a hose wrong and springing a leak. Mold is no bueno in an rv. It took the tech guy about 2 hours to remove the existing unit and install the tankless. Immediately we had hot water… endless.
The unit we bought cost roughly $1,100 US. To me this was a great investment for the sanity of my wife and 2 kids.
There has been 1 drawback to this killer item… if/when we’re in hotter climates (above 70 degrees) it’s tougher to get the heat turned down with the levers in the shower. Apparently the unit automatically warms water up 60 degrees from whatever the temp is at the spiget. If the water is hot (like in Lake Havasu at 118 degrees) it’s virtually impossible to get the water to cool down. In freezing cold climates like Santa Fe when a freak blizzard hit yesterday… I was stoked to have a nice hot shower.
PS- these are supposed to rock in Tiny Homes as well. I also Plastadipped my covering so it would be black to match my rig’s color scheme. Not a big fan of the white.
