On our last camping trip, we discovered that the hot water heater would not stay lit. It is an all gas unit by Atwood. There are only two manufacturers that are producing the hot water units for the RVs, Suburban and Atwood.

After looking at ours and doing a Google search, it was pretty

easy to determine the make.

First thing you should try is to thoroughly clean out the burner chamber and the gas orifice with compressed air. Dirt daubers and wasp, seem to have an affinity to creating their nest here. An obstruction can cause back pressure which could be causing a flame out. My unit was fairly clean with only a small dirt dauber nest in the exhaust chamber. :)

The gas units use a couple of sensors to determine the temperature of the water and whether or not the gas is lit. So the first step was to clean the connectors, by removing the wires, wiping with a little steel wool and replacing them.

Mine were pretty difficult to remove. I had to use pliers and work them back and forth.

After these two steps, I tried to light the unit with no success. Okay one more thing to check before I start replacing sensors or the control board. The

electronic ignitor provides a small resistance to the control board to determine whether the gas is burning or not. Sometimes the carbon deposits can prevent this from registering the correct amount. Carefully remove the ignitor. Have to be careful of the nut that sits almost inside the burner chamber. My unit only has a single bolt and nut. Once again "sand" lightly with a small piece of steel wool and reassemble. BINGO!! The unit fires right up and stays lit. Cool Beans!

RV Quest Part13

Several people have inquired about the "baby bed" that my wife made. With a large family (seven children), we we need all the available sleeping room we can find.

Also we needed a crib for our one year old Jillian.

Our Class C RV has Flex Steel chairs up front which are able to rotate around and provide usable sitting space while in camp. I am really not sure but would imagine most Class C's are like this.

So we rotate the chairs facing each other.

Then place the "bed" on the seats.

The bed is constructed of four panels sewn together. The back panel uses a fine screen mesh fabric so that even if the baby rolls against it, she will still be able to breathe freely.

The bottom of the bed is designed like a pillow case in which we slid a piece of luan into. This bottom piece is left open. In the future if we ever need to replace or "double up" the luan for more support, it will be an easy process.

The sides are constructed similar to a pillow case as well, but with 1/2 of one side removed.

This allows them to easily slide over the backs of the chairs.

Once the sides are in place on the chairs, the chairs are then slid "back" and tilted back to adjust the tension of the bed.

Have to give Kudos to the Mrs. she is a genius.

Next step:
Tackle the hot water heater to find out why it immediately shuts off when lit.