Water Heaters - Electric Water Heater(s) Don't Heat With Good Elements

I built a new cabin last spring at my resort in Minnesota. I put in a new GE 40 Gal. Electric Water Heater. It worked well all Summer, but just this past week I noticed it wasn't heating to more than maybe luke warm. I had guest coming so I turned the thermastats up. This didn't get it any warmer.

I had an older heater that was supposed to work so in a pinch I switched heaters, still the same problem. I thought I probably had 2 bum heaters. Not wanting to go to all the work af draining and plumbing a 3rd heater only to find out it didn't help, I had a plumber friend come and test the heater(s). He found that both the elements on both the water heaters tested out fine.

The last thing I did was to test to see if the electrical was getting any power through the breaker. I didn't test the voltage, but I did hook up a 240V Room Heater with a 20amp line to my 2 pole 30Amp Breaker that the hot water heater is hooked up to. The Heater worked fine, in fact I turned it off quickly as I beleive it was running hotter than normal.

I still have the older water heater hooked up. I hear the elements heating, but the water doesn't get hot. The thermastats are set at around 130 but the water doesn't get much over 80.

Any ideas?

Could I be so unlucky to have 2 bad water heaters?
Could this be electrical? Is the breaker Good or Bad only or could it not be sending enough juice?
Do I need to get a Multimeter?

Thanks for any help!

Paul Ness
YourResort.com

A multimeter is essential to diagnose electrical problems. I would first check for 240 volts to the water heater supply connections. Then I would check for 240 volts at the element connections. Only one element is on at any given time. So, one will have power, the other won't. This is a good starting point for diagnosis.