The water heater quit when using 110 volt power and the problem was
the thermostat. The rv store gave me a replacement that I installed and it produced very hot water. A closer inspection of the tag showed that it is 140 degrees, the old one must have been the standard 130 degree t-stat.
So, aside from the scalding issue, is there any reason not to use the 140 unit? Has anyone else gone with the higher temp?
I installed a thermostatic mixing valve on the hot water tank on my boat that worked quite well. Doing that provided a lot more usable hot water and prevented the possibility of injury.
I swapped back to the 130 thermostat, which was the original t-stat. It might not seem like a big difference from 140, but the 140 degree water is scaldingly hot. I would only suggest the 140 for people who need a lot of hot water, like 3 or 4 consecutive showers. The 140 is also about $30 rather than $10.
As far as working on the electric side of the SW6DE heater, it is pretty simple. There is a switch, the t-stat and the heating element. The only difficulty is that the designers did what they could to hide the cover screws behind parts of the propane system. So you have to do a bit of disassembly to get at the covers.
Linear Mode
