Aqua Hot Fuel Filter

[LarryNCarolynShirk]

My Aquahot fuel filter is a screw on cartridge with a water seperator sight glass on the bottom.  Aquahot wants $24.84 plus S & T.
It is a 10 micron filter.  Since the fuel pickup is a quarter of the way up the fuel tank, the possibility of ever picking up water from the tank is slim.  I have never experienced water in the sightglass of the engine filter where the pickup point is much lower in the tank.  The Onan generator does not have a water seperator in it. I am considering replacing that expensive Aquahot fuel filter with a 10 micron in-line filter available at most auto parts houses for about $5.00.  Has anyone had experience with this, or do you have a comment?

Larry

[Richard And Babs Ames]

Because of the height of the pick up tube and the capacity of the Racor filter you should not have to change it but every 5 to 7 years with normal use so the annual cost is $5.00 or less. You would have to change the smaller filter more often and have less protection so not really worth the change.

There is also a smaller primary filter that Aqua Hot supplies inside to the above left of the burner pump motor that should be changed but the prefilter you have extends the service life.

[LarryNCarolynShirk]

Thank you for your comments Richard.  Waiting 5-7 years between filter changes sounds good, but Aqua-hot tech support and their shop manual recommends annual change of both fuel nozzle and fuel filter without concern for hours used.  I guess they just need to sell parts.
Larry

[Richard And Babs Ames]

We have had our coach over 10 years here in SW FL so the diesel burner part of the Aqua-Hot gets used monthly for a cycle and a few trips to the NE in October as we have AC heat pumps. We had it serviced by a very capable tech at a large RV dealership who stated that with our usage being so little and the manual is designed for "everyone" including the high use could triple or more the service schedule. This is not written anywhere but he did comment on how clean burning our Aqua-Hot seemed to be compared to seme he has seen.

[Stanley Richard Anderson]

cnlshirk,
I called Aqua-Hot at there, (I believe Ft. Lupton, Co. factory). They no longer service there units at the factory,but they did put me in touch with one of there former servicemen that has 10 years of experience working on Aqua-Hots. He met with me and serviced my Aqua-Hot. He cleaned the burner can, replaced the fuel nozzle, replaced the photo disk (it was warped), adjusted the igniter rods and reassembled the unit, all in record time. He replaced the spin-on fuel filter with an Auto Zone  (I believe a 10 micron) filter. I have not had any problems, the unit works just fine. The Auto Zone filter only cost a fraction of the Racor filter,
sorry but I don't have the filter number.
Good luck.
Stan Anderson