I have a Rinnai RL94 tankless water heater. Today something went wrong and now I have no more hot water.

The machine is not showing any kind of error code like it has in the past when things went wrong, it's still on and (from appearances) seems to be working correctly. I have gas (gas stove works), and I have (cold) water.

What could be causing my lack of hot water?

  • You said you have gas to your stove but you also should check that the gas shut-off valve (the one that will be just before the water heater) is turned on. – Jeff Widmer Apr 9 '12 at 10:36

The user manual for your unit can be found here. According to the document the following are possible when no codes are displayed:

Clean inlet water supply filter.

On new installations ensure hot and cold water lines are not reversed.

Check for bleed over. Isolate unit from building by turning off cold water line to building. Isolate the circulating system if present. Open your pressure relief valve; if water is flowing, there is bleed over in your plumbing.

Ensure you have at least the minimum flow rate required to fire unit.

Ensure turbine spins freely.

Measure the resistance of the water flow control sensor.

Check for DC shorts at components.

In short, the more likely cause for a unit that's worked before is a lack of flow; either the device isn't getting enough from a clogged filter, or it's not detecting the flow from a failed turbine.

If you can't get anything to work on the controller (set temperature, etc), then it's also possible the power connection has failed or that the controller itself has failed and needs to be replaced.


Wanted to add to this... I had the same problem this morning, i.e.

1 - no hot water 2 - no error codes on unit

We had a snow storm the evening before, and my son piled snow in front of the vent/exhaust. The unit has a safety feature and won't make hot water if it can't exhaust. Cleared the snow, hot water returned!

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