Water Heaters - Reliance electric water heater, stubborn lower element

Adding a second bathroom and moved my 2 year old Reliance 40 gal electric water heater 12 feet from one corner to another. Would not turn on after I hooked it back up so I pulled the elements, bottom one had split and had bad calcium deposits. Top one was cracked so I replaced them with new elements. Top one got hot, nothing on the lower. Thought thermostats so yanked upper and lower and replaced them, upper element got hot lower, nothing. Checked continuity on lower showed it was bad so replaced it again. Same thing lower will not get hot. :wall: Checked continuity on lower, shows it is fine. On the upper I get 120-122 volts on both terminals to ground screw, 246 volts terminal to terminal, lower I get 120-122 volts on both terminal to ground screw, 0 terminal to terminal. :confused: What am I missing? I think all parts that could be replaced have. The parts are all under warranty so it hasn't cost any thing yet, next step drag it to the curb and get a new one?

First did you dig out all that yuck out of the tank and flush it out real good. Then fill it first all the way before you turned the power on????? Then they all work this way. When you put the power to it the top element comes on and heats the water. When its to what the tstat is set for it will then feed the power to the bottom element to turn on. You see when you just use a little hot water that poor bottom does most of the work all the time On and off. Till you use almost all the hot water then the top tstat will turn on the element there and turn off the bottom one. Do you have the right tstats for the top and the bottom?

ED ;)

Thank you for the reply Ed. First thing I did was take a drain hose for a washer and attached it to my shop vac so it would fit into the element hole and used a 1/2 inch PVC pipe to rake the stuff from the bottom and loosen it, didn't get all "yuck" out but did get a large percentage of it. Refilled and flushed it twice. Tank was filled and the lines burped before I turned on the power. The tstats are set at "hot" as it was when I bought the tank, suppose to be about 120 degrees. They appear to be the same tstats as what was in there, all the writing on it matched what was to be replaced. Last night had it powered up for 4 hours and water only got warm. Do I need to wait longer then for the power to shift to the lower element? I am draining the take again now to switch the two elements as I should have done before I bothered you guys with this. See if the both work this way. Thank you again for the reply.

:confused: Sometimes a person just needs to sit down and cry. Pulled both elements, switched them and the tank is up and running fine. Hours of wasted work for ??