Best hot water heater

[jo...@ets247.com]

Hello,
The orig gave up after 26 yrs. 'Quick survey
If you bought a 12 gall. 110 and eng. What would you buy? Many thanks.
John B
Dream Keeper
P42
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

[Donald Fife]

11 gallon Isomate

Sent from my iPad

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[Bill Schmidt]

I kind of agree with Don, but I have never had to replace the original
(yet). In 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened, the only damage we
suffered was for a seal in the water heater to rupture. All the water was
pumped out. The heating element, left on, suffered a meltdown. I took the
heater out of the boat, removed the heating element to replace the
seal/gasket, found that the heating element was dual with only one side
wired to electricity and found the heater full of severely rusting punch
castings from construction. I cleaned out the tank, removed and replaced the
"insulation", then replaced the tank back in the boat and connected the
undamaged element to the appropriate wires. Like the Eveready Rabbit, "still
running"!
But the point is, there is a lot of places where this old tank can "give
out". But virtually all of them, save for direct breaching of the stainless
steel tank itself, are easily repairable and CHEAP to do so. Are you sure
you need to spend boat unit bucks on a new one?
Billy Manana

[ChinaDoll]

I know which one not to buy --the stainless steel cased aluminum tanked hot water heater that used to be called Seaward but are now sold under another name. I had bought one from WM in Sausalito back in 2000 and apparently someone had returned it cooked. All the aluminum welds had pinholes everywhere and after installing it I turned on the water pressure to find that water was going all over the engine room. Taking it back to WM I mentioned that it should not be simply placed back on the rack and resold (again) as a return... I bought a Raritan 12 gallon instead and it has been working great over the last 12 years. However, WM didn't sell the Isotherm back then and the Raritan was the only other unit available at the store beside the Seaward. The Isotherm would have been a better unit for me as the square form factor would have been a better fit than the round Raritan units (shaped like a small-sized home/house unit).

[Michael Moradzadeh]

WM should not have resold it.  Technically illegal, but whatever.

Sadly, many items are defective as delivered to the seller as well.  I now bench-test everything I can before installation.  Saves a lot of heartache.

Right now, the new charger/inverter is sitting on the cabin sole, manfully putting out 40 amps into my totally depleted AGM battery bank.

Of course, I may be looking for AGM advice in a day or two.

M

--

[P. Sherwood]

Extra bad on WM for cheating like that. I installed a Seaward (not
bought from WM) four years ago; so far so good. Beginner's luck, maybe.

Isotherm is generally regarded as top of the line, I think. I didn't
install one because I was rebuilding Mr. Perkins at the same time and
that project had first claim on the available dollars. So I settled for
second- (or maybe third-)best with the Seaward.

Phil
s/v Cynosure

[Michael Moradzadeh]

It's so common, it's hard to blame the corporation. And the buyer may
have lied to WM about whether they even used it.

M

[Alcoop]

John
It was noted by Kris that the hot water heater did not work well off
the engine so I took it apart and like Bill discovered that only one
of the two coils heated. This led to trying to replace the coil it but
this would have required fabricaiton etc so I bought a Seward with the
notion that the aluminum double jacket would heat faster. It does not.
It does heat up fine under 110V. Moreover Seward requires a galvanic
current interrupter for the warrantee to be in effect, Another $200
making it almost as expensive as the iso therm although the galvanic
interrupter is not a bad thing to have anyway. I would love to swap it
out for an Isotherm. As for size if you use it mainly in a marina go
for the larger but it seems to me that at anchor the smaller ie 5-6
gal will heat faster. Let me know if you want to buy my small Seward
(just kidding, I think)
Allen

[Barry Kaplan]

I replaced mine with Isotherm 5 years ago. So far never a problem.

-barry