Just got a Rheem water heater installed and added the EcoNet wi-fi home module. All good. But I want to schedule vacation mode and can’t figure out how to do so.
The first and most important step is to make sure you have everything set up, including the Rheem app on your smartphone. Then you need to make sure everything’s talking and that you’ve got your Rheem water heater set up on the EcoNet network too. There’s a bunch of information online about how to do that, but from my own experience, it’s pretty straightforward.
Just write down your water heater’s serial number (it’s on the sticker) and your home module’s MAC address (again, on a sticker that’s on the back of the home module itself). Then download and set up the Rheem app, entering both values when prompted, and you should be good to go, with your water heater showing up in the app itself.
If that’s all good, then launching the app should show you something like this:
If you aren’t seeing your device, go through the setup steps again until you do see it show up (notice mine’s “Gas Water Heater” in “Basement” on the lower left).
Now, to set up a vacation period — when the water heater will automatically lower its target heat to save you money — tap on the “Vacation” button on the top right.
You can see that I have no vacations set up. Not so good, since I am poised to spend the night out of town.
To set up a water heater vacation, tap on the desired location (in my case, “Home”).
Now you can see the default start time is the current day at 5pm, to end at 5pm the following day:
Not quite right? Tap on the start or end time to change it:
Got it all just so, with your exact start and end times ready?
Excellent.
That’s it. Done. Easy enough, eh?
Oh, and if you also have a Nest thermostat, you can hook them together so that when the Nest goes into “away mode” that the Rheem water heater also automatically switches to vacation mode too.
To accomplish that handy trick, go back to Settings:
Tap on “Works with Nest”, and, well, sign in to your Nest account:
Very cool. Very “smart home”.
Now, go on your vacation already! 🙂
I have a AO Smith water heater and the vacation mode is not working. I go away for 2 -3 days a week, when i turn it to “vacation’ it is just as hot as when i left.
Anyway i can reset? Model PGCG 40 0022293-246
Thank you
My Unit keeps automatically jumping to vacation mode at random times. Every couple weeks I wake up to find I have no hot water, and have to unplug/ re-plug in my system to have it reset out of vacation mode. What can be done to prevent this “cold shower surprise”?
That’s very strange. I would reach out to Rheem customer service to see if they have any ideas…
Went out on vacation for the holidays, before leaving I set the heater on vacation mode as I always do. But this time, when came back home I cannot turn off the vacation mode, the controller appears to be frozen as it does nothing when pressing any of the buttons. Any idea on how to resolve it?
That’s strange. Can you just unplug and replug-in the device to let it reset?
Unplugging and resetting was the only way that worked for me to get our Rheem hot water heater out of away mode. Thanks for the suggestion !
Away mode is good and fine, but tells me nothing about what away mode does. Does it keep the water at 55 degrees? 80 degrees? Does it mean OFF? As in not regulating the temp at all?
I have this same question. Vacation period is setup, but what happens? Does the water heater shutdown or does the temperature go down?
From the Rheem site: “Vacation Mode lowers the set temperature to conserve water and energy while you’re away on vacation.” 🙂
Is there some advantage to using Vacation Mode, as opposed to turning off the water supply and cutting the power at the breaker? Note that my Rheem (Ruud) is actually a heat-pump hybrid. I’m wondering if having it cycle a bit, every once in a while, is good for the heat pump. Also, I read something about a ‘hydrogen build-up’ (??). Thanks for any info you can provide.
The manual on my Rheem Performance Platinum Hybrid 50 Gallon Water Heater says vacation mode maintains a steady 82°F and for this model, uses the compressor only, not electric heat to maintain the temp.
Good addition to the discussion, Ridge. Thanks.