We purchased a 2004 Marquis last August in Ca. When using on first trip noted that water pressure was very low at all faucets and in shower. Water was not really hot for a long time either.
This spring (Michigan) when getting out and ready for travel water flowed out from under coach right at Aqua Hot.
Long story shortened - Changeds all faucets because screens were corroded so bad we could not get out to clean. Changed out complete shower system.
The Aqua Hot was taken out of Coach and we found three ruptures in the copper lines that wrap around the heat chamber. These ruptures were at the TOP of the heat chamber.
Now we in Michigan believe when water freezes it breaks a line at the low point, not at the top where ther should be air.
We closed and resoldered the lines. Air test indicated still leaks somewhere in the lines.
My son said they could not get much air to go thru the copper lines so they stopped trying. Well at this point we had called Aqua Hot and they indicated a rebuilt would be $7000.00 or a new one would be $10,000.00. Not gonna happen in two days before we had to get on road.
The reduced air flow was caused by a tremendous built up of what appeared to be sand that was really a calcuim mineral deposit that had almost entirely blocked the Aqua Hot lines. This is what we were getting in sinks and shower head which we would have to clean when taking a shower to keep water flow.
I figurerd I had nothing more to loose so I put the air pressure to the line continually and after it built up she finally let go. The calcium build up coated my arm and shot up all the way to the 12 ceiling in our shop. The blast shocked me so I let off the air. After wew realized what what happened wew put the air back to it and got much more deposit out.
With this came the realization that we needed new copper lines and this was most likely the source for all the plugged faucets.
Removed copper lines and rewrapped with new copper. Replaced in Coach with no leaks.
Found out on trip that you can get a little hot water but not constant hot water with just replacing the copper pipe.
Pulled Aqua Hot out again on return to home and found thru a web search that we needed to seat the copper line in a Heat Transfer Mastic. Just happened to have the lady at one of the heat mastic transfer sales tell me that Aqua Hot buys this for their units. (we were told we could not do this and get it to work by several Aqua Hot shops). Right. In one conversation they did say we would have to grind the tank down to clean steel.
2nd attempt, 2 gallons of heat transfer mastic, 150' of 1/2" refrigeration copper, 1 coupling, 1 90 degree bend and we have it back in service with excellent water flow, very hot water and pressure is excellent.
Total cost for 2 attempts, material $430.00. Labor hours numerous but we were learning and the second try took 16 hours to remove repair and replace.
Obviously there is some very hard water on the west coast as this coach was said to have never left California. I am not sure if any water filter system would eliminate this type problem. Does someone know if that would be available? I do not need to do this again.
Just a note: We do a lot of mechanical work on our construction equipment and vehicles and have shop to work in but this is not rocket science if you have to fix an Aqua Hot. I have some other tricks that we learned and used that will make the job much easier if you ever have to do one. dougallman@chartermi.net
