Water Heaters - GE Water Heater - Pulling 37 Amps

I have looked through the threads on here, but can't find anything to answer my question with the information I have.

This is a house my wife is working on, so I can't just go out and check things...

Model GE40S6A 4550 Watt 230V 40 gallon short and stocky water heater.

Water heater wasn't working, so I checked the breaker, it was tripped. I flipped it back on and the heater kicked on.

However, I put an amp meter on it (I work in HVAC) and each hot leg was pulling around 37 amps.

This is a 40 gallon and user manual says it should have a 30 Amp breaker which it does. I turned off the breaker and left to find the manual. It was on for probably 15 minutes or so and never tripped the breaker.

Any ideas?

It is probably nothing to be honest.....but if you want to check up on some things yourself you can go here:

http://waterheating.rheem.com/DEALERS/resourceLibrary.asp?displayNode=62


Rheem makes GE water heaters and Rhuud as well so the literature will all be the same for your heater.

For use with an electric water heater the circuit breaker may not be loaded beyond 80% of its capacity. For a 30 amp circuit that means the water heater may not "draw" any more than 24 amps.

Here's what I think may be happening: Your water heater probably has two (upper and lower) heating elements each rated at 4,500 watts. They are supposed to be wired so that only one is in the circuit at any one time. Either someone wired the two elements in parallel or the upper thermostat (which controls which element is energized) has failed in a way that is allowing both elements to be energized.

Two 4,500 watt elements energized will draw 37.5 amps on a 240 volt supply.

Yep, I think Furd has a good theory. Grab your amprobe and see if both elements are on at the same time. Some "smarty" probably tried to turn their standard water heater into a high recovery unit.

I agree with the above 2 posters.....that link i posted above will show you the correct wiring diagrams if you don't have the paperwork from the heater itself.

Thanks for the help all,
I wouldn't have thought of someone wiring both to come on together....What do they say...? "You can't fix stupid" ??

I'm going over there this morning with wiring diagram and amprobe in tow. I'll let you know what the problem was!

The wiring was all correct, so I went to my local "big box store" and bought an upper thermostat for about 13 bucks.

Switched it out and it worked!

Thanks again for all the help!

Thank you for letting us know of the happy outcome.

Just FWIW, some units do allow you to wire one or both elements to be on at the same time. So it's possible to have the unit with the proper wiring and breaker, and if the next owner wires both elements (as designed to be) to be on, it could then exceed the wiring and breaker ratings.

A Sears unit I purchased as a replacement a few years ago was like that, I had to run new wiring and a larger breaker, because I DID want both elements to run when needed. They didn't always run, only when the temp dropped below a certain point, such as after a long shower.

They allow you to...it is possible to..is it a good idea regardless of what the heater says? No. Heaters shouldn't run both elements at the same time. At least thats been my experience :) Everytime someone wires the 2 together a problem always creeps up.

Perhaps there was a mis-understanding. When I said it was possible on some heaters, I was referring to heaters that were _designed_ to have both elements running, not done with some wiring work around. This unit came with a jumper plate, install it and you get both elements (and about a 4500 watt draw), remove it and you get one element and about a 2500 watt draw.

No 'creative wiring' needed.

Ok..i gotcha. Yeah, there are specific heaters made for this...i see what you were referring to now :)