Water Heater Upper Thermostat

How a bad thermostat causes your water heater reset button to trip.

Water heater upper thermostat.

The upper thermostat is the primary one that contains the high limit switch and the lower thermostat is used to detect the change in the temperature of the water. An electric hot water heater has two thermostats controlling two separate heating elements one in the upper half of the tank one in the lower half. Adjusting an electric hot water heater temperature thermostat setting. And once the water has.

Electric water heaters have one or two elements and each is controlled by a thermostat. Usually when the upper thermostat goes bad you will have no hot water at all while a bad lower thermostat makes itself known when there is only a small amount of hot water before the tap water goes cold. To test you will need a multimeter and screwdriver. It s not necessary that both thermostats will do the same work their work can vary according to the water heater unit.

The upper element heats the upper portion of. An upper and a lower located under two control panels. Testing the thermostats on a dual element water heater. Reliance 9000507 045 lower electric thermostat black 4 7 out of 5 stars 252.

The majority of electric water heaters have two thermostats. You can test them with the power off using an ohmmeter to measure resistance or with the power on using a voltmeter to measure voltage. The upper thermostat controls both the upper and lower element. This rheem marathon upper element thermostat is specifically designed to be used as the upper thermostat in a rheem marathon residential electric water heater.

These water heaters often have a non simultaneous design which means that only 1 heating element is on at any given time. When it goes bad you don t have any hot water at all. Testing the upper thermostat. Rheem uv11699 therm o disc upper thermostat electric water heaters 3 9 out of 5 stars 7.

This type of thermostat is for use in 2 element water heaters. You can pick up a good inexpensive multimeter online or any local hardware store. Adjusting an electric hot water heater temperature thermostat setting is a little more involved but still relatively easy. A dual element water heater uses two heating elements controlled by two separate thermostats.

The thermostats are responsible for controlling the heating elements. Rheem gas control thermostat natural gas model sp14270m part ap14270. Electric water heaters have a lower and upper thermostat one for each heating element. If the hot water heater is not working one of the thermostats may be bad.

Since most electric water heaters use both an upper and lower element the process outline below is for them. Many modern homes come with dual element water heaters.