1998 Liberty Hot Water Heater

[Richard Barnes]

I recently purchased a 1998 Liberty Coach and I need to find a water heater for replacement on the coach. Any help out there?

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Welcome Rich.

You have asked an uncommon question to some degree. First what is it, a Raritan?

What actually failed. Does it leak? It will no longer heat the water? Unless someone left it full of water to freeze they are usually repairable.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Hey Rich,

This will get you started.......

http://www.raritaneng.com/products/water_heaters/index.html

It is probable you can get a duplicate of the tank you have.

I have done work in the water bay on my 97 Liberty as well as on my 87 Liberty. If I had to replace the HW heater I would probably pull the water holding tank so I could sit in the bay and have plenty of room to work. I pulled the tank on my 87 which had a very similar set up to my current coach and it was actually easy. Obviously there are a lot of things to remove or disassemble to do that, but if you have a good place to work on the coach it should pose no problem.

I slid the tank out and then used a typical floor jack, with the tank balanced on it to pull it out the rest of the way so I had pushing and shoving to do, but no lifting.

[truk4u]

Richard,

Welcome aboard, keep us posted on your water heater, I want to do mine also.

[Richard Barnes]

Well, for information, the hot water heater is $1100.00 and installation by Prevost is $900. I've owned the coach for about 7 months and it must have frozen last winter before I purchased it. It was a small leak but annoying and as it turned out the tank was cracked. I now have hot water and I'm happy!:)

[Petervs]

Wow, you spent $2000 to heat hot water and now you are happy?

I can see spending the money to heat cold water.....

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

I think he's more happy to be rid of the leak.

[Coloradobus]

WE discovered our hotwater heaters are in the West Marine catalog for a fraction what Marathon charges for them. :eek: Friends of ours just replaced their pair for $1400 for the parts, and $300.00 for labor at our local Airstream dealer last summer. It was basic plug and play after Marathon shipped them.

[Darrell McCarley]

Raritan Engineering (856-825-4900). I think that I paid $550.00 plus shipping for a 20 gal, 120v with heat exchanger. Its the 1700 series. The labor was much easier than I expected. Took about 3 hours for me. Should take less time for someone that knows what they are doing.