Dometic water heater does not maintain temp on gas

Harvestmoon

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2021
Messages
177
Location
Wisconsin
2023 22MLE with Dometic 6 gallon WH-6GEA combination gas+electric water heater. In gas mode, lights off and heats water most of the way. When I say most of the way I mean about the temp you would shower without mixing any cold. Then it shuts off and never attempts lighting again no matter how cold the water gets. If I turn it off and let it sit for several hours with gas mode off, then I can turn it back on again and it will repeat the same cycle (mostly heat once and then never maintain). LP cylinder is about half full and stove burners and furnace work fine, so I have no reason to think it is a gas supply issue. In electric mode the water heater works as it should (heats to full temp and maintains it). We usually use in electric mode when we have shore power, but we have a week long boondocking trip that we take every year where we need to heat water on gas mode. Any thoughts? We can get by with it this way but obviously not ideal. I'm an electrical guy, so gas water heaters are a little outside of my wheelhouse, although my sense is it must be a control issue.
 
Last edited:
2023 22MLE with Dometic 6 gallon WH-6GEA combination gas+electric water heater. In gas mode, lights off and heats water most of the way. When I say most of the way I mean about the temp you would shower without mixing any cold. Then it shuts off a never attempts lighting again no matter how cold the water gets. If I turn it off and let it set for several hours with gas mode off, then I can turn it back on again and it will repeat the same cycle (mostly heat once and then never maintain). LP cylinder is about half full and stove burners and furnace work fine, so I have no reason to think it is a gas supply issue. In electric mode the water heater works as it should (heats to full temp and maintains it). We usually use in electric mode when we have shore power, but we have a week long boondocking trip that we take every year where we need to heat water on gas mode. Any thoughts? We can get by with it this way but obviously not ideal. I'm an electrical guy, so gas water heaters are a little outside of my wheelhouse, although my sense is it must be a control issue.

Do you have a fully charged battery? I have seen an issue where the battery voltage was low, and while the spark ignitor would work, the lower voltage would not energize the gas value.
 
Do you have a fully charged battery? I have seen an issue where the battery voltage was low, and while the spark ignitor would work, the lower voltage would not energize the gas value.

Great question and something I forgot to cover in my opening post. In this case it was our first time out for the season and I was testing all of the systems. I tested the water heater gas mode even though we were plugged into shore power and I normally would have used electric mode. Since we were plugged in and the converter had fully charged the batteries, IIRC the Victron monitor was showing around 13.3-13.4V.
 

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