The water heater on your RV takes a lot of punishment. Corrugations. Bull dust. Lack of service. All caravan gas water heaters are serviceable. Some easier than others. Cheers Truma! Most people don't give it a thought though and just expect their RV water heater to last forever. When the time comes though and you realise that you've sprung a leak or it's just not reliable, we are here to help.
We recently replaced over 40 Suburban water heaters under the Suburban recall warranty. We are glad to see that the new Suburban storage water heater is available for sale to the general public now. Suburban is a hugely popular caravan water heater due to the simplicity of it's design and the easily available spare parts. The new model uses the same spare parts so we don't have to restock. We've got you covered.
Below: hot water units being replaced for customers travelling by the Sunshine Coast
Other models that we stock and supply on the Sunshine Coast or that we can order in are:
- Swift hot water 22 and 28 litre varieties.
- Suburban Nautilus
- Fogatti continuous flow
- Girard Mk2 continuous flow
We no longer stock Truma as the importer in Melbourne seems to only want their chosen repair centres to supply Truma. You can buy it from Suncoast caravans in Kuluin. They won't discount for the trade unfortunately and they sell it cheaper than we can buy it wholesale from Coast2Coast. So if you really want a Truma... we are happy to fit it if you supply it.
Below: Truma Ultrarapid storage heater, powerful Nautilus on-demand, Fogatti continuous flow
At Gas Connections we are happy to replace your hot water heater at your van address, at your holiday park location or sometimes it's just easier to drop by our home base on the weekend if you're passing through (subject to availability). We have no expensive workshop with high overheads. We live in a great street with great neighbours and have plenty of space. Swapping an existing hot water unit would generally take about 2.5 hours including the paperwork. That's if it's a regular caravan install. If it's a DIY converted van and was installed by someone not so knowledgeable about such things then it will likely take longer.
The tempering valve is an important component that isn't supplied with the storage water heater when you buy it. Most good caravan manufacturers will supply and fit it with the heater when the van is being built. Unfortunately, many back street van and camper builders omit this valve to save themselves a couple of hundred dollars. They don't seem to care that the water heater stores water at say 70'C and that a child or anyone can easily be scalded. All storage water heater instructions state that a device to limit water temperature (to a maximum of 50'C) must be fitted per the Australian Standard. We will always fit one if one is not fitted but we will advise you first that your RV builder or the water heater installer has short changed you.
Below: Suburban gas/electric model SW6 DERA fitted to Coaster bus
Storage hot water units are optioned with or without a 240v heater element. Generally it's about an extra $150 to buy a storage heater with the electric heating element built in. It cannot be added later. If you are likely to spend time at caravan parks then it's a good idea to option it and use the park power to heat the water instead of your own gas. Of course you can use gas and electric heating at the same time to halve the time it takes to heat the water in the tank. If you think that the gas hot water isn't working always run off some hot water first. The thermostat won't allow the gas to ignite if the thermostat has reached temperature.
