So no hot water today. Went to the breaker box and saw the breaker had tripped. Reset it. A few hours later still no hot water. So I checked the reset button on the hot water heater itself and it was not tripped. Hot water heater is making no noise (there is usually some noise coming from it when it is heating). Any idea what may wrong?
Bad thermostat maybe, the chance of both heating elements going at the same time is about zero. Do you have hard water ? If you do the lime will build up in the bottom and eventually ruin the bottom element but you still have some hot water from the top one still working.
upper element powers up first. If water never reaches set temp. the bottom element won't get power. Remove power to unit and measure resistance across the 2 screws on the upper element. 12.5 ohms is what a new element will have. With power back on to the water heater you can turn the upper thermostat to max. temp. and then you can use volt meter on ac volt scale to see if upper element is getting power from the thermostat. Most of the time i find upper heating element burned out and the lower element is good.
this.. upper is more prone to going out because of the lack of water across the element so it gets too hot & pops. drain the heater and pull both of them and inspect, DO not put power to them until the tank is refilled or you'll need two more :up:
