We turn on Water heater when we wake up - by the time we've had breakfast it is ready for showers. We then turn it off and wash morning dishes. For the rest of the day we utilise kettle on stove for heating any water for lunch and evening wash up, we fill the kettle with residual warm water from hot water tank for the rest of the day. I am a miser when it comes to gas usage as it can get a bit expensive to fill bottles in remote areas ($90 in Gregory River).

-- Edited by Possum3 on Thursday 6th of July 2017 12:23:14 PM

what did you do at home, I just leave ours going, there is better ways to save money. Make your own lunch, don't buy that coffee. Life is to short and you cant take it with you
cheers
blaze

Good question Warren. I will be changing from my continuous HW service to a Suburban in a few months so am interested in the replies. From what I hear speaking to those with one they only tun on 15-20 mins before shower then turn off. As has been said earlier they boil water for dishes on the stove.

Now, you use gas on the stove anyway so you are still using gas from same bottle yes? Does the Suburban use more gas than the stove?

 

Tony, I do the same as you now with boiling 2lts of water on stove then into a bucket of cold water and shower with battery camp shower in shower cubical. Works a treet. FOR NOW.

My Suburban HWS takes 20mins to heat from cold to 65C. More than enough for shower and wash dishes. I never leave it on 24/7 as some do. When free camping gas is precious.

Also, takes only few mins to heat kettle with enough water for coffee/tea when required. Smart use of gas makes bottle exchanges less often and saves $$$.

IMO. 

An rv mob in USA did a test on the suburban hot water service and found that if you turned it on when you get up each morning and leave it on until after the evening showers or washing up it actually uses less gas than continually turning it on and off as the system cuts in at a preset temp and reheats the tank again before it gets cold.

As there is no pilot light in a suburban hot water system then I think they may be correct.

We turn ours on when get up and off again when we do the evening washup. When bush camping and using the gas fridge cooking etc plus water heating our 9kg gas bottle lsts around 3 weeks and for us that is ok.

We have always left ours on 24/7.  It doesn't have a 240v option.

As well it's not a remote start one, so the start up process involves using a lighter at the unit to ignite the pilot flame & then after a minute or so turning on the main burner.  

Once up to temperature, the burner turns off leaving the pilot flame burning.  

When the water temp drops the main burner ignites.

I only hear the main burner start up after a hot water tap has been used, so I assume that the pilot is enough to keep the tank hot.

 

Too much trouble turning it off & on.

Perhaps if I was in remote places I might turn it on & off, but probably not.

If I wanted to save $s I would maybe buy $10 a bottle wine rather than my usual $15.  Or buy cheap bread.  Or go down hill in angel gear ....  No I don't think so.

 

Edit  ..

My gas bottles last about 4 weeks, mostly for HWS but a bit for fridge too.   So if the bottle lasts twice as long then over 8 weeks we save the price of one bottle  .. perhaps $25.  This represents a saving of about $3 a week.  So why bother.

 

-- Edited by Cupie on Thursday 6th of July 2017 07:40:46 PM

Warren-Pat_01 wrote:

---

Hello Everyone,

I'm after some advice. Is it more economical to leave a gas HWS lit continually over a period of a few days? Or better to turn it off after use - ie one lot of washing up & two showers & then turning it back on the following evening for the same cycle?

Up to now, I have done the latter thinking it would save the pilot gas. However letting the tank cool down & then reheating with the burners coming on full for the time to bring the water up to the set temperature must chew up a reasonable amount of gas.

Your thoughts please.

Warren

PS - isn't life wonderful? I deliberately filled up all my tanks on Friday & weighed the rig.

Result, I'm now emptying the van to check the tare & I have to get the ATM increased on the Nissan!

---

 

I am reading your question as, "Should I Run the HWS once a day, in the evening, for washing up and showers, or run it full time? Which is cheaper?"

IMO...Heating once a day would be cheaper than running HWS 24/7.

 

 

Seems to me that their is some sort of misconception re the suburban hot water service.

On the auto service ones that use 12v to ignite the gas via a switch inside there is NO pilot light, the hws is ignited via 12v and when the hot water has reached the required temp the flame is completely turned out until the water is cooled to a preset temp where the cycle starts again.  

Thanks everyone, it seems the answer to the question is up to what other people normally do & it seems to be around 75/25 as to when they turn the heater off off. Generally Pat boils the kettle at night & fills the hot water bag (for aches & pains) & the thermos flasks - one for coffee next morning, sometimes what's left goes to the washing up, sometimes they are hot enough for morning tea when we're out birding.

Dodg,
I have noticed the length of time to heat the cooler water in the evening is quite long but if it's been on all day, the on periods are less. Without an accurate flow gauge, it's difficult to work out which system chews the most gas. I thought if the majority of people went one way or the other, then I'd follow suite. Our next trip in a few weeks - we'll be on power.

I recalled the HWS was lit by the 12v - it certainly is more instantaneous than trying to get the fridge going!

Thanks to everyone who responded. I have thought about using the solar bag from our camper but there is no tree branch to hang it from in the van!

Warren