Hello fellow boaters, Recently my '88 Carver Mariner 3297 hot water heater is only pumping out 4-5 minutes of hot water before it goes luke warm. It's an electric water heater and haven't had any issues until now. Any ideas? Thank you!!
IF a dual element heater, sounds like one of the heating elements has failed. I remember a strange issue that drove me crazy for a while on our boat. Both elements were good yet hot water went aweigh after a few minutes. Found both the transom shower valves open and the water flow just turned off at the transom shower head. This connected the hot and cold water directly. Start your shower inside the boat, the cold water would go in the hot line from the transom to the inside shower and end your steamy shower early. I figure cold water flows easier that hot water.
This can also be a symptom of a failed cold water down tube. There is often a tube in the heater so the incoming cold is delivered to the bottom of the tank. If it fails, the cold goes in the top and you can get luke warm water.
I would guess that your 25 year old water heater is full of sediment and junk, greatly reducing it's capacity. I'd buy a new water heater given the age of the unit.
Seems likely perhaps. If it is original, how likely is it not dead? If not dead how likely is it to be repaired with new parts? How much time and effort might be involved is finding out? Nothing wrong with that approach, we learn from doing so.
Understand that but to say replace it without even troubleshooting the problem is just a waste of money and effort.
Water heaters are known for filling up with scaling as they get old. 25 years is WAY OVERDUE. So yeah, if you want to waste time and money buying heating elements, hoping they haven't welded themselves in there and you don't crack the tank taking them out, only to find out the water heater itself is the problem, which at 25 years old, I'm 90% sure the tank itself is the problem, go right ahead. I prefer to replace junk, rather than trying to fix something that's 10 years overdue.
This is really true. The cost isn't significant, although the effort might be...but then again, after so many years that removal will afford you the opportunity to address quite a few items of buried and deferred maintenance. Add, new ones will use less power and provide better service going forward.
It was the original brass? inline regulator from '88. It was corroded, I assume the interior of it was nasty as hell. Probably not getting enough water to the water heater. Also replaced the water hose from the dock to the boat. Nothing wrong with the water heater itself thankfully.
Similar. Pressure relief valve went bad. The valve is plumbed into an overboard discharge. After arriving at the boat and turning on the water and water heater - would never heat the full tank of water up, continually bleeding off hot water. Simple inexpensive fix, replaced the pressure relief valve. Solved my problem.