Water heater, pilot or electronic ignition

[tiinytina]

Sent: 4/14/2008

Hi all,
    The water heater we pulled out of John and Kati's winnie is a Mobil temp 6 gal with electronic ignition (located on the front of the heater). The Suburban 6WP looks to be a good fit as a replacement for this... Question is... should we go with another electric igniter or one with a pilot light (slightly less expensive)... I'm assuming on this that one would only light the pilot light when you wanted to fire the unit up and otherwise leave it off.....
    no clue on this one..... and found both on ebay....
Tina

[ohhmom]

Sent: 4/14/2008

Personally I would prefer the electronic ignition.  Number 1 with the price of gas these days...who wants to take the chance of leaving it on...and wasting gas....number 2 who wants to go out and light the pilot and shut off the pilot every time you want hot water?..Not me.  While cost sometimes will have to be the determining factor....I have found with gas appliances in our home...that we have less trouble from the electronic ignition ones than the regular pilots.  The thermo coupling seems to last longer for us in electronic ignition appliances because it is not burning as much.  Just my two cents worth.   Donna

[ontheroadagain]

Sent: 4/14/2008

I replaced  mine last year with the pilot model due to price (I got it of E-bay) and I prefer to Keep It Simple Stupid! Who needs added electronics that can fail and cost a lot to repair. I  only have to light the pilot when we arrive at campground then the main burner will heat the water up and will not usually turn on again until we use the hot water. The pilot will keep the water hot until we use it .Then I just turn it off when we leave the campground thats my 2 cents for what its worth (maybe just a drop of gas)

[ibdilbert01]

Sent: 4/14/2008

I too prefer the electronic ignition. They are not that much more complicated to work on and I know a pilot light does not consume much gas, but you still save a little money by not burning it around the clock. When I replace mine, I will buy one that is electric too. Why burn your hard earned fuel when you can use the campsites electric?

[Froggy1936]

Sent: 4/14/2008

Hi Tina. I prefer electronic. But when i replaced my tank (due to PO not winterizing) I replaced it with OE type and added a 110 v heater kit works fantastic (but is harder to winterize as it replaces drain valve) Just another 2 cents worth electronic is easier just flip a switch from inside as  opposed to going out in the cold or rain to light pilot(which takes a few minuets)   Frank

[ClydesdaleKevin]

Sent: 5/12/2008


I really like the convenience of the electronic ignition, and we bought our 10 gallon gas/electric water heater 2 years ago, an Atwood...and the electronic ignition still works flawlessly.  One thing we LOVE about our Atwood is that we bought the virtual "16 gallon" model.  It's a 10 gallon tank, but it heats the water to a much higher temp than normal, and a mixing valve on the back of the tank mixes it with cold water, bringing the temp down to normal, so you effectively get 16 gallons of hot water!  LONG showers...yay!!!

The BEST thing about the tank is that it runs on park electric, OR propane!  We save a BUNDLE on propane with this thing!  You can run in on electric, propane, or both if you want the water to heat up really fast (quicker recovery if you have multiple people that need to take showers...lol).  In other words, if we run the heater on propane, we go through our propane tank FAST...if we run it on electric, our propane lasts a VERY long time, since we basically only use it for cooking otherwise.  In 2 years, the water heater has already more than paid for itself in propane saved.

Kev