Water heater issues! Any ideas?

[Gigem]

This is not my house, I am asking for my brother-in-law about his place in Port Aransas, Texas.

Had a water heater fail a month ago (all electric). He replaced with a Rheem unit from Home Depot. The new unit had the upper heating element thermostat fail multiple times. He replaced with new thermostat and it would fail too. Ultimately Home Depot agreed to take it back and he got a different model Rheem from a plumbing supply place. Installed it, and the same problem. Thermostats quickly fail.

I believe the failure of the initial heater that had been in place for several years might have been similar. Was not a leak, it stopped heating water.

He has had the electrical tested by an electrician who says everything is fine and that his problem is not electrical.

Brother-in-law is being told that this is just a situation where the Rheem units are garbage and that it's a manufacturing quality control issues.

Any thoughts on this from the experts? I'm thinking he needs to find a new electrician, but what could the problem be???

 

[Mike Folks]

City,or well water? High mineral content may cause heating elements to be covered in scale,poor heating will result.

 

[The Cobbler]

I don't buy the quality control issue, with that many bad ones
but having said that I don't have any thoughts, other than maybe a bad contact somewhere causing arcs , leading to t stat fail... perhaps?

 

[Gigem]

City,or well water? High mineral content may cause heating elements to be covered in scale,poor heating will result.

City water. And it's killing these thermostats within hours...

 

[samss]

Just to check all of the boxes:
Breaker size
Wire size
Circuit distance
Voltage reading
Amp reading
Data logger for the volts/amps over the course of at least a week
Water heater model number

 

[Kaizen]

Interesting
Assuming he got same size replacement size the wire should not be an issue. Please confirm same voltage? Doubt replacement thermos and heater could all be faulty. So I’d look at breaker and grounding. So not the wire but a test on it couldn’t hurt.


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[DGersic]

He is filling it with water before turning on the power, right?


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[American Locomotive]

I don't even understand how it could kill a thermostat in hours? The water heater should take at least 1+ hours to get up to temperature, and should maintain for hours before needing to turn back on again. And even then, only the lower element should be cycling on and off once the upper element is satisfied.

Are you sure he's purging all of the air out of the heater before applying power?

 

[The Cobbler]

^^ I thought of that , too, but OP says the thermostat, and I don't think that would cause a stat failure

 

[BD1]

Lower the temperature setting. I'm betting the stat is maxed out at 140 or 130 and shutting down on high limit
Lower to 120


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[Zmann]

I have installed a lot of Rheems but no more
the last one I did was making the "water white " according to my tenant who was also in the process of buying my home
i adjusted the tstats and looked for any potential reason the microbubbles would be present
no reasons found but the complaint continued so I replaced it with an AO smith and problem gone ..
Rheem said it was nothing on their water heater ,, I told them that was BS since I had already relocated that unit to another job
miles away and guess what ? micro bubbles and white water

Rheem was useless, luckily the place I installed it just washes hair so the white water was not a concern ( even if it is harmless)

I would not be surprised at all if this is a Rheem issues but it sure seems like the odds are aiming towards some electrical anomoly ,, keep us posted

 

[nadogail]

Not being a plumber, my guess is that all of the air was not bled out of the waterheater.

 

[CraigStu]

I am a retired auto tech so not expert on home diagnosis. But, my question to the electrician is, was the water heater operating at the time he tested. It's easy to have 240V at the heater when it is off that drops to 200 when the load comes on. Also I don't remember the details of how the upper and lower elements work but I believe that there are times when both are running and times when only one is running. If he tested w/ one running, the second one coming on could have one heck of an effect on line voltage.

 

[SARG]

Electric water heaters are rather simple in operation and are basically all the same.
Two new units both failing from what is "thought" to be the same malady ?
The problem has to be electrical..... that is causing the same fault in two units.
That said ... the upper & lower components are tied together and alternate in function....... and a lower thermostat malfunction can effect the uppers operation.
If I was in that situation I would replace the double breaker and then both thermostats and both elements. ( a shorted element can screw up the thermostat operation )

 

[Gigem]

Lower the temperature setting. I'm betting the stat is maxed out at 140 or 130 and shutting down on high limit
Lower to 120


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We may have a winner here! My sister in law likes HOT water so he had thermostats set very high. Will try this and report back.

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[rlitman]

City water. And it's killing these thermostats within hours...

The water isn't killing the thermostats, since the thermostats aren't wet. Settings are also not killing the thermostats. Are we even sure the thermostats are bad? The thermostats and elements can be tested on their own without power but a competent tech.

This is an electrical problem. I'd search for stray currents. Could there be electricity flowing through the pipes? Something not grounded somewhere?

 

[firebirdparts]

I have a hard time believing anybody would be so ignorant of electricity to stymied by this. The thermostat is either on or off. The material inside the heater is either water or air. The water's either hot or cold. The element is either open or a complete circuit.

I hope you figure it out. After you've eliminated everything that's impossible, I guess whatever you're left with is the answer.

 

[firebirdparts]

P.S. the bad reviews on HD seem to be mostly for leaks, but there are a couple in there for a bad thermostat. They run about 10% 1 star reviews.

 

[rlitman]

I have a hard time believing anybody would be so ignorant of electricity to stymied by this. The thermostat is either on or off. The material inside the heater is either water or air. The water's either hot or cold. The element is either open or a complete circuit.

I hope you figure it out. After you've eliminated everything that's impossible, I guess whatever you're left with is the answer.

Airplanes are either in the air, or on the ground, and yet so many crashes have been attributed to "controlled flight into terrain", that an acronym (CFIT) is used for this situation.

I've seen many people troubleshooting things completely overlook the obvious stuff. Let's hope someone gets to the bottom of it.

 

[BD1]

The water isn't killing the thermostats, since the thermostats aren't wet. Settings are also not killing the thermostats. Are we even sure the thermostats are bad? The thermostats and elements can be tested on their own without power but a competent tech.

This is an electrical problem. I'd search for stray currents. Could there be electricity flowing through the pipes? Something not grounded somewhere?

It’s not the water. Some electric water heaters when On highest setting reach limit switch sensors before shutting down.
Lowering to 120 has fixed the situation.


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[rlitman]

... Some electric water heaters when I highest setting reach limit switch sensors before shutting down.
Lowering to 120 has fixed the situation.

Do they have a lockout mechanism? Even so, there's no excuse for not recognizing the difference between a control lockout and a failed thermostat.

I can't say I've ever seen a high limit switch in a water heater. The only ones I've seen have a T&P valve.

 

[adsinnott1]

I just changed both elements and both thermostats in my electric water heater. It kept tripping the reset button so I figured for $40 I would just replace it all. While waiting for the parts I noticed the lower thermostat was set to 150 deg. I turned it down and matched it with the upper thermostat at about 125. Did not trip again while waiting for the parts (about a week). It was tripping every day before that. So maybe try adjusting both thermostats to a reasonable temp (around 120-130). Should be plenty hot enough. 130 is very hot water and don't think anyone could stand showering in that. I was glad I replaced everything as there was lots of build up on the upper element.

 

[BD1]

Do they have a lockout mechanism? Even so, there's no excuse for not recognizing the difference between a control lockout and a failed thermostat.

I can't say I've ever seen a high limit switch in a water heater. The only ones I've seen have a T&P valve.

The relief valve is above the temperature senors. On electric water heater it's a push button reset ,built in.


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[rlitman]

The relief valve is above the temperature senors. On electric water heater it's a push button reset ,built in.

Good to know. But did any of the techs say anything about a push button reset? If I'm diagnosing a thermostat, I'd verify that voltage is reaching it before I condemn it. There's a lot that doesn't add up here.

 

[wrenchguy]

Speaking of water heaters, my daughter has a rheem gas model that was installed and inspected in march 1969. Everytime i walk past that green tag i shake and bow my head wondering....
Oh yea, works fine.

 

[gagecalman]

The relief valve is above the temperature senors. On electric water heater it's a push button reset ,built in.

Red high temp reset button.