Hot Water HEater HELP

[JB4XX]

Not getting any power to the lower element. I have tried bypassing the lower thermostat, and swapped out the upper thermostat with another one. There is a new element in the lower, but it is not heating up.

Any help?

I'm not much of an electrician but have triple checked the diagram on the box from Home depot from 2 years ago when I replaced upper thermostat.

Can I run the power directly from the inbound wires to the lower thermostat/element or must it come from the upper thermostat?

I'm not in the mood to burn the house down.

[01xxallen]

How old is it?

Water heaters are cheap and easy to replace.

Hot and cold in the top, easy electrical panel hookup.

In my area, the water heater fills up with calcium (I think). It looks like gravel in the bottom.

Of course, you're supposed to flush them out every so often, but who does?

[JB4XX]

How old is it?

Water heaters are cheap and easy to replace.

Hot and cold in the top, easy electrical panel hookup.

In my area, the water heater fills up with calcium (I think). It looks like gravel in the bottom.

Of course, you're supposed to flush them out every so often, but who does?

It is about 6-6.5 years old.

I have flushed it out twice, we get flaky calcium build up that looks like oatmeal, shop vacuum suxx it all out.

Easy to replace if you find one with same dimensions I guess.

I didnt want to replace unless I had leaky tank.

[ironmike]

Had the same problem (lower element inoperative)... Turned out to be the first hint of a trace leak that shorted out the lower element housing (or whatever the proper nomenclature is) that I didn't address in a timely fashion - bad mistake... subsequent flood... Fix was a new water heater. I wish I had acted sooner - less grief and expense.

"Water always wins." - Doctor Who

[JB4XX]

Must google lower element housing

[JB4XX]

Dual-Element Water Heaters

Dual-element electric water heaters

have two thermostats, one for the top element and one for the bottom element. The top thermostat controls both the upper element and the lower thermostat. The two elements do not operate at the same time.

Water heaters are filled from the bottom. A fill tube goes from the intake at the top of the tank to the bottom of the tank, so that cold water enters at the bottom, leaving hot water at the top, where it exits the tank at the outlet as needed.

The upper element is the primary element. It operates first to heat water at the top of the tank and make it available for use. Starting with a tank of cold water, the primary thermostat at the top turns on the upper element and keeps it on until the water temperature reaches the setting on the thermostat.

The primary thermostat turns off the upper element and sends power to the lower, secondary thermostat which turns on the lower element. The lower element heats the water at the bottom of the tank until it reaches the control setting temperature. All the water in the tank is now hot and both elements are off.

Water is used from the top of the tank, which brings cold water into the bottom of the tank and pushes hot water at the bottom towards the top. Since the upper thermostat is still off, the lower thermostat turns on the lower element again to heat the additional cold water until it reaches the temperature setting.

If enough hot water is used so that the tank is once again filled with cool water, the upper thermostat will turn on the upper element and turn off the lower thermostat, starting the process over again.

Deducing from the above description, "if" you have NO POWER TO EITHER element, press the red dot reset button in the thermostat of the top element housing. If still no power to either element or the upper thermostate/reset housing, check your power supply to the whole water heater (curcuit breakers, connections, etc.)

If POWER TO TOP ELEMENT ONLY, then suspect that the top tank is cold and the bottom element has been turned off while the top element is on, as the system is operating properly. Constantly monitor the voltage to the bottom element to see that when the top tank gets hot, the bottom element receives power as the top element looses power, to indicate that the system is operating properly.

I did notice the upper thermostat is not sitting completely flush with the tank. Could this cause the upper thermostat to think it is still needing to heat and never trigger the lower one to heat up?

[googus]

Is there calcium buildup on the lower heat element?

True what was siad if you can't fix it your self most time it is cheaper just to buy new(the american way)

I did the same on a 9 year old tank-tank fine but need a new thermo-over/flow and pilot. I could have fix myself but in the end i just bought a new larger tank that would save us more money and also gave me a reason to put a whole house filter and water softener in. I thought it would just save me the time and money in the long run and believe it or not sold it on craiglist for 15 bucks:)

[hillbillyxx]

If you go the new route be sure to use the new Sharkbite fittings. They are the cats meow.

[Blackwing]

Sharkbite fittings rock with one exception,make sure you do not use them if your house is plumbed with plastic poly-B pipe.

Poly -B was used for about 10 years from late 70's until around 1990.Then they banned it for any household domestic water use due to the fact that A..... it's fucking crap and B.... it was responsible for about a 100 million dollars worth of damage to buildings because fails way too much.

You can tell if it's Poly-B quite easy.Poly-B is usually stamped on the pipe stamped on the pipe at 18 to 24 inch intervals or by just checking its wall thickness.It has a very thin wall when compared to Pex or super Pex

Another way to tell is Pex and Super Pex are almost always white(sometimes either of these can also be red and blue) Pex and Super Pex exclusively only use Brass fittings and the crimp rings are dark colored.

Poly-B is almost always a light Grey color and can have either Brass (Later installs use Brass tee's elbows couplers etc etc) or plastic fittings (Earlier installs have plastic tee's,elbows couplers etc etc) and the crimp rings are bright copper.

In the last update in my code book Sharkbites can no longer be used with any form of poly -B mainly due to too may blow off failures at the fittings