It’s taken about a year from the first manifestation of a problem to a resolution, but my RV water heater is now operating perfectly. The final fix was easy, but getting there involved quite a bit of diagnostics.

The problem was that the water heater would fire up, then turn off after a few seconds. The problem appeared to be propane flow. At least, that’s what seemed logical to me. After all, whenever something else in the rig fires up then dies, it’s because there’s no propane. So, that’s the red herring I chased until I finally asked for help. Experienced RVers, including Croft, told me they’d experienced similar symptoms at the same time their circuit board died. This wasn’t very reassuring!

Before I was sent out to buy a new circuit board, I was told to check all the connections to make sure they were clean and tight. That helped a bit, sometimes.

The next step was to remove and replace the probe. Les of RVer’s Corner did this for me when I stayed over in Prince George this spring, using a probe from a leaky heater he’d picked up. He also did a few adjustments. This also helped a bit, sometimes. So, I had to concede that I had a worst-case scenario short of replacing the whole RV water heater and needed a new circuit board.

Circuit boards aren’t cheap; the best price I could find in Canada was over $200 with shipping. It wasn’t an expense I could justify at a time when I had access to free hot showers. I decided to hold off until the summer when I’d be a bit more flush and then bite the bullet.

This is when I discovered that sometimes procrastination can pay off. Donna of Life On Our Ark knows an RV tech named Tony*, based in Okotoks, who just happened to be replacing a perfectly good water heater with a perfectly good circuit board just like mine. Long story short, the circuit board made its way to me for the unbelievable price of $15–the cost of shipping!

The new board arrived this afternoon and installation took fifteen minutes, ten of which involved finding tools. On a scale of easy peasy to omigodcallanrvtech, I’d consider the replacement of the circuit board in an RV water heater to be easy.

Donna’s awesome packaging! 🙂

the boards are attached with two screws and have two electrical connections

the boards were identical, right down to their round green sticker

this awkwardly placed screw required WD-40 and pliers to remove and reinstall

guess which one is old and which one is new

*Tony Thomas, Technician/Owner of RV+MD (that is a red cross) Mobile RV Service “Quality, Full-Line RV Service At Reasonable Rates”  (403) 968-RVMD (7833) rvmdrv@telus.net