Inoperative water heater, need help please

[Jimmy9190]

I went to wash my dinner dishes tonight and found I have no hot water. Hot water was fine this morning when I took a shower and went to work. Heater is out in my tool shed and now it's making a hissing sound I have never heard from it before. The hissing noise stopped when I turned off the breaker to take a look at the water heater.

I don't know the capacity of the water heater, the decals have paint splattered on them from the previous homeowner. Heater is about 3 feet tall. It has 2 elements, one at the bottom and one about 2/3 the way up the side of the water heater. The outer edge of the mounting nut on the upper one is hot to the touch, the bottom one is cold.

Anybody know if replacing the lower element will fix it? Are elements maybe wired in series and if one goes out, you have no hot water at all?

I know you have to drain the heater in order to service the elements and fill it back up before restoring power to the heater or it will get damaged. Any other info you guys have is greatly appreciated.

 

[oilboy123]

I would think you should have some heat if one element is OK.

Is your water hard? How old is it? Should say on a the decal, if you can read it. If it is fairly old it is normally best to replace the heater. Or you end up just sinking money into a piece of junk.

You should be able to test an element with an ohm meter.


I have only worked on gas ones......

 

[AcuraTech]

Does it have one of those yellow Energy Star tags on it? If so it should say which year it was made. IMO if more than 10-15 years old better just to replace it. That's just personal experience though, maybe someone who knows more about it can weigh in.

 

[greenaccord02]

Acuratech is correct, the MTBF for most waterheaters seems to be around 10-15 years, but maybe yours is an exception. It should have a drain at the bottom that can be hooked to a waterhose. Hook one up and drain it completely (breaker off) then let it refill. If the water that drained out was brown, it's rusting inside and just a matter of time until it floods your shed. See if the problem fixes itself after the drain and refill. If not, remove both elements and check their continuity/resistance (as oilboy suggested) to see if they are OK or broken. Or, if you're without a tester and they are interchangeable, switch out the two and see if both get hot or if it's still just the upper, or just the lower. If you can isolate a bad element and the water drains clear, replace the element and continue, but if it's more than a matter of an element, I'd head to the waterheater store.

 

[flanso]

Replacement elements are readily available; I used to buy them at Ace Hardware in Naples for about $15 each. When they fail, the element breaks up so you will easily recognize the failed one once they are out. You'll need to drain the tank. I used a very large adjustable wrench to get the things out of the tank as the hex on mine was 1 3/8". Take the old element to the store as there are several different sizes. Oh yes, don't forget to trip the breaker! When we used well water, failure of those heating elements was a fairly regular occurrence.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks for the help. I have city water so hopefully there isn't a sediment problem. The heater doesn't look to be very old but I could not read any dates on it last night because of the splattered paint on it. I found a good tutorial on eHow.com on using a volt ohm meter to test the power circuits and the continuity of the elements. I hope to get a better look at it today in the daylight.

Thanks for the help here.

 

[1sttruck]

Bradford White has manuals online for troubleshooting, so I'd guess that most others do too.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks again for the help. Turned out the upper thermostat was bad. $13.89 at Lowe's and an hour's worth of tinkering and testing and I have hot water again. The hissing noise stopped after the water in the tank heated up again too.

I never could find a date on the water heater though. It doesn't look all that old. Hopefully it's still good for a few more years.

Thanks again, fellow BITOG'ers. It's great that we help each other out like we do.

 

[Steve S]

http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/index.html More than I want to know about water heaters ,good info.