Electric water heater. Summary.

[notdeadman]

I've been reading a bunch of posts on electric water heaters and I have a few questions.
#1
Could someone run through how this upper/lower thing works again?
#2
Somebody referred to the lower element as doing all of the work, but it sounds like it only comes on after the upper one has been on for a while and the temperature on the upper tstat is up to its target. It seems like the upper one is doing all of the work.
#3
Also, I pulled the upper and lower covers on mine and I see some plastic
things and some wires. After I remove the wires and yank on the plastic,
will it be obvious which are the thermostats and which are the heating elements and where to ohm-meter them?
#4
And will it be obvious how to remove the elements?
#5-7
And is there anything special about installing new elements? Do they just need teflon tape or are there instructions on the package? Do I need a special wrench that somebody mentioned or will pliers or vise-grips work?
#8
My problem is that the same breaker switch is always tripped (two 30 amp ones, I think) and there is no hot water when this happens. Does that point to a problem with the upper element since if it was working and the lower element wasn't, I'd still get hot water, just not a lot of it, right?

Alright, that's all for now. :) Thanks a lot in advance. sean

[Ejbogusch]

ONE and TWO

Dual thermostats in electric heaters normally work one at a time. There are exceptions but for this post we will assume this is the norm. When water enters into the heater it is take to the bottom of the tank via the dip tube. Since the layers of hot water is stacking in your heater and the hottest layers being at the top and the colder water entering at the bottom it makes sense that the bottom element will do most of the work. The upper element is really only in maintain mode when there is no draw on the hot water.

THREE

The plastic thing is a guard that covers the electrical components of the heater in order to prevent shock. Did you turn the power off before you pulled on this? The element is round with two wires attached. The thermostat is above the element and is rectangle. One wire must be remove from the element to ohm it. Checking an element requires that you check across the two terminal which you should read some measure than null. Also you should check each terminal to ground for shorts.


FOUR

The element unscrews counter clockwise. There are element sockets to do this or wrenches. Make sure the water and power is off and the pressure is released from the tank.

FIVE_SEVEN

Your element will come with a o-ring that seals it.

EIGHT

When you ohm your elements as described above you will find the cause of your short.

[notdeadman]

Thanks for the good answers. To cover all of the bases, this morning I checked the wiring in the subpanel. I had planned to check that (because some post or website said it could be a possibility) and then get the specifications for my thermostats and heater elements so that I could buy replacements for everything on my way to work. Well, one of the hot wires in the subpanel was just sitting in its little hole, not even screwed down. I'll see if tightening that cures the breaker flipping. But I'm ready to fix any electric water heater now! Thanks "Ej"!