Hot water heater not heating

[Mightychan]

2005 420. Water heater is drawing 15 amps per the meter on the panel, but it's not heating water. What would be causing this? Thanks

 

[Hoplite808]

Faulty heating element perhaps.

 

[Morgan Jane]

Are you sure it's the HWH that's pulling the amps? Maybe turn everything off and then just the HWH. I doubt the HWH would pull that amount of amps and the water not heating. Thats alot of amps to be doing nothing.

 

[Little Ducky]

Your water heater isn't bypassed in any way is it?

 

[Lazy Daze]

Check for power at the heating element. Then turn off the power and check for resistance across the coil; a good coil has extremely low resistance (close to zero). You can do the same (ohms) at the t-stat.

 

[Stee6043]

My two cents - if that's an original water heater I'd just replace the whole thing rather than replace the heating element. Water heaters are quite inexpensive in the grand scheme.

This of course assumes you confirm it's not being bypassed as mentioned above

 

[Mightychan]

That's what I was thinking. However, with the panel meter showing zero, I click the hwh breaker to on and the meter reads 15.

Are you sure it's the HWH that's pulling the amps? Maybe turn everything off and then just the HWH. I doubt the HWH would pull that amount of amps and the water not heating. Thats alot of amps to be doing nothing.

 

[Mightychan]

Not bypassed.

 

[markrsimon]

Does the 15amps drop after 20min? If you have a mixing valve - perhaps thats broke/frozen not letting the hot water out? If you open the drain or pressure relief valve - do you get hot water?

 

[JayhawkCurtis]

Are you sure it's the HWH that's pulling the amps? Maybe turn everything off and then just the HWH. I doubt the HWH would pull that amount of amps and the water not heating. Thats alot of amps to be doing nothing.

I agree with this, a bad heating element opens the circuit, and shouldn’t pull any current.