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New house. New 50 gallon electric hot water heater. Sometimes it would make a full tank of hot water. Most of the time it would start running cold way to soon, like one minute into a shower. Seem to be acting like it did not have a dip tube. Checked. It does. Checked the heating elements with a meter. Good resistance. Test light showed electricity to all terminals. In operation, however, only the top element was making heat. A little more checking and I find that the terminal on the top thermostat (#4) that feeds the bottom element is not hot. I disconnect and wire to an unused terminal (uper left corner) where one of the wires from the panel attaches to the overload breaker. Vola. Lots of hot water. Two questions. First, have I fixed the problem or simply jury rigged someting with long term energy or safety concerns? Second, what is the real fix? Replace the top thermostat? I am pretty good at figuring most things out but this is voodoo science to me.
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Got this off the Web:
"When the water in the top of the tank is hot the upper thermostat removes power from the upper heating element and transfers the power to the lower thermostat and heating element. If the lower thermostat is defective, then the water in the lower portion of the tank will not be heated and the supply of hot water will be greatly reduced. Check for power at the upper thermostat terminals where the power is sent to the lower thermostat and heating element. If there is no power then the upper thermostat should be replaced. If there is power then check for power at the lower heating element. If there is no power at the lower heating element then replace the lower thermostat. If there is power to the lower heating element then it should be getting hot. If it is not, replace it."
Common sense says that the lower element is more important to heating water than the upper element. Single element water heaters have the element at the bottom of the tank. If the lower element doesn't heat, then you're only getting a third to half a tank of hot water. If your upper thermostat is defective, as the paragraph above would indicate, then you haven't done anything really dangerous, as the lower thermostat should control the lower element, even if there's constant power to the thermostat, as you've now accomplished. I believe that the control sequence described above is designed to save energy when there's no hot water demand. If the lower element were not controlled by the upper element, as with the new configuration you've adopted, it'd probably be on almost all of the time.
Since they're so cheap, I'd replace the upper thermostst, were it me, and see if there isn't an improvement. What's the warranty, by the way?
Steve
*If the water heater was provided by the building contractor, then you probably have the bottom of the line everything in it, including heating elements. The best are sheathed in nickel alloy (like A.O. Smith Incoloy) and cost on average about thirty dollars more for two of them than the cheap zinc-plated elements that are in the water heater now, yet they'll last longer and perform better. You can also opt for a higher wattage element if your circuit will accommodate it. The higher wattage elements will usually be of the folded over design, also.When replacing a thermostat or high limit control, always take the old one with you to the parts store to compare to a new one. Almost all themostats are made by one company, but they're available in a myriad of configurations -- even between heaters of the same brand and model.
*At the same time I made the earlier post I sent an e-mail to the company that made the heater. They responded with a 1-800 number for their engineering department. Funny, no such number on the web site. After waiting for an engineer to become available I finally talked to a knowledgable fellow. He asked for the name and phone number of the dealer who sold the water heater and told me to go by and pick up a new thermostat. When I got there they had one on the counter for me. Is the problem fixed? I'll know first thing in the morning.