NO HOT WATER!!

One thing my wife definitely got from her mother was the need to shower in boiling water.  She uses shampoo, conditioner and soap but feels the need to burn off 1 of her 3 layers of skin in her morning shower.  Sometimes it is unbearable to be in the bathroom as the hot water steals what oxygen is available.

Needless to say, I have known that hot water is important to my wife and apparently to her mother also...apples don't fall from trees or something..i guess.  So we have made adjustments, she gets out of bed first and showers to ensure that the hot water is hottest for her.  I will admit, It is also nice that I get an extra bit of time in bed.

So the last 6 days in our new house haven't been necessarily the best for her.  She woke me up at least 3 or 4 times this past week and told me that she ran out of hot water.  This starts her day off bad and we just cannot have this.  So something must be done and it had to be done quick!!

We knew that she had hot water in the beginning of the shower, it went away during and she left the bathroom shivering.  When I went down I found the circuit breaker tripped.  This happened every time we did not have hot water.  That is as far as my troubleshooting skills were initially.

So I went to Google determined to learn to be a water heater repairman.  I found a website that taught me how to troubleshoot a water heater to determine possible faulty parts. Tanklets Website  I would have like some more pictures but this was the best website I could find with step by step instructions.

Fortunately I had the tool to do the troubleshooting after convincing my wife it would be useful a couple of years ago when our dryer was accused of being bad by an apartment complex with a clogged dryer vent.

So I started troubleshooting, I was a little nervous considering I had a couple shocks changing our outlets (120V) and the water heater has twice as much at 240V.  So I didn't dare even give this electric a dirty look for fear of death.

Step 1: Checked to make sure I had the right size breaker - CHECK

Figure 1

Step 2: Checked the screws above and below the high limit (red circle in Figure 1).  I did this by setting my multimeter to 300 on the ACV setting and touched the black stick to the screw with the black wire and the red stick to the screw with the red wire and it showed 240 V. ( I could have touched black to red and it would have been fine).  This test proved the high limit was pushing power through it and was okay. CHECK

Step 3: Turned the heat setting knob all the way over to the highest temperature setting and heard the thermostat click on.  I checked the screws and found 240 V on the thermostat screws. CHECK

Step 4.  Checked the element screws the same way (yellow circle). CHECK

Step 5. I repeated this for the lower thermostat and element (no high limit on lower panel).  The upper thermostat had to be off for the bottom element to get 240V (I turned the temperature down to lowest until I heard it click off.  There was 120 V as the troubleshooting website suggested prior to switching off the upper thermostat, afterward there was 240V. CHECK

Multimeter

Step 6. Turned off circuit breaker.  Removed one screw from the element to check for continuity.  I switched to the Ohm setting time 1k on my multimeter.  I touched the two screws on both elements and the needle moved all the way over.  This proved the elements were okay. CHECK

Step 7: I touched one pole to a screw and the other to the metal flange of the element (the flange is the metal behind the plastic box holding the screws that butts up against the wall of the water heater).  All four screws showed continuity which suggested that both elements were grounded out, I found this unlikely.  I talked to my supervisor, he said to remove both wires. When I did this, I found the bottom element was indeed grounded out and the upper was not. The fact that the wire was still attached made the upper act as if it was grounded out. CHECK

So I had done it!! I think I had figured out was wrong with my water heater.

I went back to the computer and found the replacement element on the Home Depot website Rheem Water Heater Element.  So off to Home Depot we went..We bought the necessary element (right) and tool to remove the element (left).

I got home and started the draining of the water heater, opening the pressure relief valve on top of the water heater helps it drain faster.  After a long wait and some impatience on my part there was water on the floor and I was ready to start removing the old element.  It broke loose with a quick turn but I could not get it out.  I pulled and twisted and bent and it finally came out and boy did it need replaced (see below).

After I got this one out, I removed the top element to make sure it looked ok.  It looked a lot better than the one below.  I replaced the bad element with the new one.  Turned the water back on and kept the relief valve open, when the water came out I knew the water heater was full.  I put everything back together and turned the electric back on.  I completed this at 9:30pm and as of 10:30am today the breaker hasn't tripped and that is with two showers on it.

I just hope I fixed it but I am optimistic!!