[Wanderman]

As many of you know, I have been repairing my Aquahot for a while now. All is working (with the exception of the 120v element that will have to wait until next spring!) and the system is doing it's job quite well.

The AH and Newell manuals talk about the electric system working fine down to a certain cold temperature at which time we should turn on the diesel burner for supplemental BTUs. That's fine...

Why wouldn't the system be setup to do that unattended. So, let's say you are in a very cold climate and you leave the coach alone to do some errands or sightseeing or are gone for an extended amount of time. You leave the Electric Aquahot system running, but it gets cold enough to need the Diesel side. No one is there to activate it. So bad tings could happen.

What would it take, to sense the lack of temp in the boiler (with the electric on) and trigger the diesel switch to on until it's OK. Could avert a disaster!

I'm looking into it...of course, it may not be needed. The electric side may keep things warm enough to prevent freezing in the bays and pipes but not warm enough to be comfortable.

Just musings....

[encantotom]

we lived in our coach at 20 degrees with just the electric and it was fine. any colder and i wouldnt have been there

tom

[Wanderman]

Tom,
What were the thermostats set to? Were you warm enough without activating the diesel side?

[folivier]

If you have both electric and diesel switched on the diesel will only come on when the temperature drops down to a certain point (guessing around 180 or so) where the electric won't keep up. No problem keeping both switches on.

[Richard]

What Forest said. The snap thermostats are setup so that the electric is set slightly higher than the diesel thermostat ensuring that the system automatically runs BOTH the electric and the diesel when the electric can’t keep up IF you have both switches ON.

For example my electric comes on about 190 or so, and kicks off at 201. My diesel comes on around 180 and kicks off at 192. Don’t take those as absolute numbers, just what my uncalibrated readout says.