Water Heater Switch Wiring

[anoldman]

My Gulf Breeze camper has a gas/electric water heater. I have a single wall switch to control the propane burner but the only way to turn off the electric is with a switch outside on the heater. I have found a dual wall switch to control both but am not sure how to wire it up. I am wondering if I'll need to run 110 through the wall switch or wire in a relay somewhere. I'd like to do this "factory" if possible. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[anoldman]

Well, I found my answer on another forum and thought I'd post it here in case someone else wants to do this. The power to the wall switch needs to be 12v and that means wiring in a relay. I mounted the relay in the water heater compartment inside the camper and ran my 12v wire to it. I spliced the 110v line through the relay so now I have an easy way to turn on and off the electric hot water heater. This modification only cost me about $15 for the double wall switch and relay. Don't know why they didn't do this from the factory.

I'm also going to mount a couple of 12v LED indicator lights I bought at Radio Shack into the switch so it'll be easy to tell what is turned on at a glance.
Happy Camping!

[FreedMeister]

Thanks for this post. I recently bought a 2008 GS supernova, and it has no switch inside to control the AC element in the Suburban water heater, only a switch for the Propane. Well built camper, but some really silly "cost savings" at the factory. Obviously not designed by campers...