Rheem PowerVent H20 heater won't run with generator power.

[Cliff]

Rheem PowerVent H20 heater won't run with generator power.  Electronic control on waer heater faults out.  Water heater model #GP50T06PVJ  Generator: Coleman powermate model #PM0545305

Anyone know of an easy low cost work around and or why this occurs??
Called Rheam and got a strange answer:  "Generators have reverse polarity and the water heater control will not work with ANY generator because of this"

[Jess Tolbirt]

no such thing as reverse polarity on Alternating Current.
what you have is a floating neutral, you need to bond the ground and neutral to the system you are powering up...if you are not an electrician i would suggest that you get one to do it for you and put it on a transfer type switch,,,

[Cliff]

no such thing as reverse polarity on Alternating Current.
what you have is a floating neutral, you need to bond the ground and neutral to the system you are powering up...if you are not an electrician i would suggest that you get one to do it for you and put it on a transfer type switch,,,

We are on a transfer switch.  The A/C being alternating current is why I thought their answer to be strange.  The ground and neutral are bonded as per instructions in generator manual

[Cliff]

Ended up buying a 1kw inverter with pure/true sine wave output and hooked to our deep cycle RV battery.  Works fine.  That puts an end to cold showers for us during power outages!  Hate dodging ice cubes in the shower!

[¿spoom]

Ended up buying a 1kw inverter with pure/true sine wave output and hooked to our deep cycle RV battery.  Works fine.  That puts an end to cold showers for us during power outages!  Hate dodging ice cubes in the shower!

Sorry I just noticed this. Saw a similar case where they used a 1:1 isolation transformer and everything "fixed itself". Apparently it cleaned up a sloppy chopper circuit and smoothed it out enough to to emulate a decent sine. It's been quite a few years, I think it was a used transformer they got for scrap value, rated at several times the load it was actually being used at. I'm sure the oversized core probably helped condition it.

[Cliff]

Ended up buying a 1kw inverter with pure/true sine wave output and hooked to our deep cycle RV battery.  Works fine.  That puts an end to cold showers for us during power outages!  Hate dodging ice cubes in the shower!

Sorry I just noticed this. Saw a similar case where they used a 1:1 isolation transformer and everything "fixed itself". Apparently it cleaned up a sloppy chopper circuit and smoothed it out enough to to emulate a decent sine. It's been quite a few years, I think it was a used transformer they got for scrap value, rated at several times the load it was actually being used at. I'm sure the oversized core probably helped condition it.

I can see where the inductive load of a 1:1 transformer could smooth the modified sine wave a bit.  Heck, even an inductive line filter may have helped.