 | Richmond Water Heater Woes |
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Question: I've been fighting with this hot water heater for a few days now and it has boggled my mind, and everybody who I've talked to. It's a Richmond 240v that's about 3 years old. So here's the story. I came home the other night and the breaker was tripped (it is a twin 20 amp breaker). When I tried to reset the breaker it wouldn't lock in the 'on' position. So I figured it was a bad breaker. Not too uncommon considering the mobile home is 17 years old and it was original. So I replace the questionable breaker and reset it. I waited for about 45 minutes and nothing happened. So I go to the hot water heater and notice one of the hot wire connections was melted where the wire nut connection was. I cut, clean, and reconnect the wires with a new nut. Waited for an hour, and there was still no hot water. So I decide it's time to install a kit. I killed the power, drained the tank, and removed the elements. They are 240v 4500w elements. I go to the hardware store and match up the size and wattage. I got the whole kit which included elements, upper and lower thermostats. It was like $7 more than buying the elements only. So I come home, cleaned out the lime, and install the elements and thermostats. I turned the water back on and filled the tank up and waited... Guess what! No hot water. I later found out that I made a mistake and didn't let the air out of the tank. So I figured well this is going to be one of those $20 lessons. I go back to the hardware store and get another set of elements and installed them. I even checked the dip tube to make sure it was good. This time I made sure that there was water at the pop-off valve on top. Turned on the power, and waited an hour. No hot water. Now I'm starting to get frustrated. I break out my handy multimeter and start checking the voltages. I'm reading 120v at all the connections and at both elements. I turned the power off and I'm getting continuity through all of the wires and the tank as the common ground. I even ran another wire from my service panel to the water heater to make sure I had a good power source. Still no heating. So I'm completely stumped now and I was wondering if you all could suggest something that I've over looked. I know it's POSSIBLE that I got two bad sets of elements, but it's not probable.
Answer: You say the element is 4500W @ 240V. That means it should have a resistance of 12.8 ohms which you can check with your meter. Then, if it's connected to the circuit and you measure 240V across it, it's heating. If it doesn't have 240V across it, trace back to the problem. With a 20amp breaker, the thermostats must be wired so that only one element is on at a time, as it will be pulling 18.8 amps. Also, I think that as it currently is wiered is an NEC code violation, as I think for a continuous load, the actual load is supposed to be a max of 80% of the breaker.
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