Aqua Star on demand hot water heater

[pixie]

Hi folks,
My hubby and I are installing an aquastar on demand ,propane hot water heater in our school bus conversion.It is model 125.

I am REALLY paranoid about propane safety and was concerned that maybe all the rattling and stuff (it is a school bus,and located in the rear of the bus)could affect all the connections and internal stuff causing a leak or explosion or something.

Does anyone have experience with these things in rv's or bus conversions?
Any advice on how to "shock mount" the heater??
Thanks ~ Pix

[Les Lampman]

Hi Pixie,

Don't know whether this post will help or hurt; depends on how you feel about the typical manufactured RV to some degree. See, almost every one of them for dozens of years now has had a propane furnance, water heater and stove/oven installed in them. I'm not going to say that no RV out there has ever been manufactured well but the majority of them are put together with less than top notch workmanship. And yet, a vast majority of them somehow manage not to blow themselves up even given the poor installs. In all likelihood you will pay far more attention to your installation and have even less chance for any failure.

I'm in the boat business and am extremely careful about propane aboard a boat where any leaking gas can not get out of the hull (unless its given a way); the methods we use to do boat systems result in very safe installations. The unit you're considering is also sold in the boat market and is subjected to a great deal of rough and tumble use.

It's good to be concerned about these things; it makes you pay more attention to what you're doing during installation but there's really nothing to be afraid of if you take your time and check each fitting. Strap down the propane hard lines (or use boat-style flexilble lines) and you'll have very little if any chance of damage.

Side note: All the propane appliances in my 1976 Class C Beaver motorhome still work fine and there are no propane leaks even after 30 years; Beavers are a little better made them some but still nowhere near as good as you can do for yourself.

[pixie]

Hi Les,
Thank you for your words of encouragement,...it does help...

What kind of lines do you use for boats ?? Should we use them on our system ??

You said the same model is used in boats,would that be the aquastar 125 model ??

A lot of my fear comes from having seen a friends house explode sue to a gas leak.....Pix

[Roasting8]

Hi Pixie,

I would also recommend, for your peace of mind, a propane gas leak detector. They run about 50 bucks.

That way, even if by the off chance, you'll be wraned of a leak.

[Roasting8]

excuse my typing, I should have written "warned" instead of "wraned."

Too many beers I guess.

[soused moose]

Propane detectors are really nice …but they do have a propensity for going off for ‘environmental ‘ reasons quite often….
Especially if you have a dog and/or eat bean dishes a lot.

In our last bus ,ours was going off all the time …scared me half to death every time it did.
I’d leap up , run around getting Millie & Becky out of the bus….then I’d look for the leak.
Eventually we figured out the ‘leak’ was coming out our dogs butt.
After that we pulled out our $50.00 ‘fart detector’.

I hear they’ve come up with models that are more propane gas specific….but they are pretty expensive.
I’ll put a good one in our trailer because I’ve seen the evidence first hand on what an explosion of LP gas can do.
When I was a little kid sitting in the back of our Rambler station wagon …in line at the gas pumps.
A car ahead of us blew up just like you see in the movies….
Turned out the dad was sitting up front smoking a cig …kids in the back were playing around and somehow knocked the valve off the propane tank….they had just filled.
Kablooey !!!!!

It was a not very nice experience for me and ever since then I’ve been extremely paranoid about the stuff.
Stuff scares me so much I redid the LP lines in Latcho Drom 3 times just to be really safe.

[Ryan Grimm]

I'd think any good propane/gas grill dealer would have flexible propane hoses available. I usually steal them off of gas grills that everyone tosses out 'round here. That way I have a flexible and fairly vibration-resistant connection for any appliance. Securing the rigid lines with padded clamps will do the same thing.

If the hose has cracks I do NOT use it. I also use pipe dope on all pipe-threaded connections to forestall leaks. I do NOT use pipe dope on flare connections.