The first upgrades on a 2 week old Hawk

bsharp007

bsharp007

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
250
Location
NorCal
New Hawk.jpg

First the new Hawk freshly mounted on the truck.

Thermostat.jpg

Very first simple mod, a digital thermostat with simple 2 wires and heater only.

Batteries.jpg

Second mod, removing the AGM battery in the new Hawk and replacing with the 2 Battleborn Lithium batteries from the old Hawk, which have been working out nicely.
Also wired in a Victron 30 amp solar charger into the factory wires that go to the roof and back panel terminating in a SAE plug.
Interestingly in my owners Manuel two SAE plugs with stripped wires on the other end were included (greatly appreciated) so I just crimped those directly to my solar wiring which terminates into MC4 connections on the 2 175 watt solar panels I installed on the roof. (More on that later)

SAE Plugs .jpg

The two Renogy 175 Watt solar panels I added to the roof which weigh just under 20 lbs a piece. I attached them using 3M 4950 VHB tape and covered the Z-brackets with Permabond tape.

Panels.jpg

And lastly I added the excellent 712 Victron Battery Monitor to keep tabs on everything.

712 Monitor.jpg
 
Hot water controll.jpg



Looks like FWC has gone away from a hot water tank to a hot water on demand the Gerard system. It works great and seems to take up a lot less space and weight than the old 6 gallon hot water tank system. I did learn a tip after operating the Gerard hot water on demand system...instead of trying to moderate the water temperature by using the cold and hot water knobs on the shower simply set your Gerard temperature setting at appox 105 degrees or whatever is comfortable and only open the hot water valve.
Apparently the FWC pump just doesn't have enough flow for the Gerard sensors and your shower temp alternates from cold to hot...not very good when you're taking a shower!

Here's a pic of the controls for the new hot water demand system FWC is installing, mounted in a cabinet.
 
It uses propane...from what I can tell so far with one trip, it uses less propane than the tank system.
 
 
That is pretty cool they even fit in the 6 gal tank area. I'm always annoyed by using the Suburban water heater. Can't be too windy and the white soot from the anode rod is ever present.
 
Vic Harder said:
I found the manual - GSWH-2 Service Manual.pdf (rvupgradestore.com)

Just based on this excellent documentation alone, I would say this product is a worthy option!
Click to expand...
I'd probably consider this option if I were to order a new camper. However, 30 some pages of troubleshooting makes me wonder if there are lots of potential problems. I've not looked at the range of problems associated with water heater in my 2015 Hawk since it has not failed to work so far.
 
The manual looks very well done and complete. Much better than a new product with little penetration in the market and few or no RV repair facility with any experience with the product and no documentation from the manufacturer while out in the boonies somewhere. Any competent RV mechanic could probably make headway on getting it going again.

Lack of transparency on troubleshooting info would be of greater concern.

just my $0.02

Paul
 
I have found that with my Suburban water heater, there is very little cold water that runs before the hot water gets to the sink. I understand that with on demand systems that it takes a while for the water to get hot once you open the tap. I bring this up because I'm an old Baja traveler and water conservation is critical if you want to stay on a beach for several weeks. Truth be known, we use a garden sprayer for our shower down there because it is much more stingy with the water, plus it adds and extra 3 gallons of water to our total capacity. Another reason for the garden sprayer is that we don't have to run purified water in it like we run in the camper system, unpurified well water works fine. Bathe in sea water, rinse the salt off with the garden sprayer.
 
Hi bsharp007
Congratulations on the Hawk, being able to set your hot water temperature is a huge plus when showering. For those who don’t have that feature, Ray with “Love your RV” used a digital temperature with remote probe placed under the insulation against the tank. The digital display placed in a convenient location. Watching the temperature, and when the desired set point is reached simply turn off the water heater.

Did you find out if the flow was your problem for heater shutting down?

Russ
 
From what I can tell the Girard hot water on demand senses flow and when the flow is at a certain point (0.5 gpm) it fires up, by opening up the cold water valve (knob) in order to regulate the temperature of your shower it reduces the flow into the hot water unit and the system shuts off the burners for a second or so.
What this means in practical terms is your shower goes from hot to cool and back to hot, I think the FWC stock water pump is on the low side for this new system and when you open both the hot and cold faucet knobs it reduces the flow from the hot water line into the hot water on demand unit.
But fortunately there is a workaround, you set the Gerard panel to whatever temp is comfortable for your shower (105 for me) and simply turn the shower all the way to the hot water only.
I think FWC will be getting a lot of complaints until people figure this out, btw my old Hawk had the exact same issue with the hot water tank.
 
Your upgrades look great!

The thermostat you used appears to be Honeywell TH1100DV1000 Pro-Digital 2-Wire Heat Only. What is the lowest temperature setting you it will allow? Can you set it to 35?

Wish I'd gone with the Renogy panels instead of the 180 watt from BougeRV which weigh about 7 pounds more, each.

Thanks.
 
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