Why is there a hole in the bottom of our hot water tank?

[freakn]

Is it threaded? Maybe it is a drain for winterizing.

[lornaschinske]

Bowen Water heaters are Atwoods or Atwoods are Bowen... They are now branded Atwood but are the same). For comparison, look at the plain LP (or electric if you have electric) Atwood diagrams. The drain for the Bowen/Atwoods are on the face. BTW, you have a very old water heater. From what I can tell, it looks like the cold water inlet (hot water outlet should be higher up) Check out page 26 of the PDF (link located below)


Atwood Water heater Service Manual YOU NEED THIS!!!!! DOWNLOAD AND SAVE!. This is the Service tech manual for the folks who work on the units. Except for the fact that our current Atwood water heater (replacement) is newer, it is pretty much identical to the vintage Bowen that we suspect was original to our RV. It developed a small leak in the tank. So it got replaced.

[lornaschinske]

I meant to take a pic of the old RV heater we have. I think it's a Bowen also and it has no insulation on it. when David gets in, we will run back over to the bus and I'll get a pic of the tank itself. I'll get it up tonight

[lornaschinske]

Old water heater front. This is what we will be using to heat the coolant fluid for the bus' hydronic heat exchangers while parked.


Top "hole" is for hot water out. Bottom "hole" is for cold water in.


Plumbing elbow that was threaded into the "holes" ( that "bump" on the tank just above the elbow)

Hope this helps.

[lornaschinske]

Perhaps instead of a plug, you may want to put a shutoff valve on it so that you too can winterize it (or flush it). I know flushing our tank is a pita. So we don't. Only time I did anything to our heater tank, I was trying to flush out some of the lime. We have so much limescale build up here that I decided to do a white vinegar flush. Luckily it's a small 6 gallon tank. So I ended up taking what was basically a vinegar scented shower. Did do a good job of stripping the shampoo build up out of my hair though. But I don't want to do that again! We have been looking into water softeners for the bus. I've never had "softened" water but David has. So he knows a bit more than I do. I always thought hard water with iron in it was just fine. At least it didn't have sulfur in it. Although I did used to drink out of the artesian wells in the orange groves in FL (lots of lime and sulfur... mineral water!).

[Stuff]

oh.. that is never fun... well better now then when you really depend on the system!

[lornaschinske]

We found it was cheaper to buy a whole new heater than replace just the tank. Boy have water heaters gone up in $$ since 2007. I didn't think it had been that long! We have been fulltiming for 5 years, starting into our 6th year.... time flies!