hot water heater problem

[brian]

Hi,

It seems as though my water heater stops working when it gets cold out (40-55 degrees). The unit is new, and it is inside of the house. This is an electric unit, and we replaced the unit because of these same symptoms. It is on a 240 line, all by itself. If anyone has any ideas, I would be thankful.

thanks,

Brian

[Speedy Jim]

Measure the voltage across the 2 wires going into the heater (should be 240V). If zero, maybe the breaker is failing or some splice/termination is open. How is the heater fed and what does the breaker arrangement look like?

Jim

[brian]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the quick response. OK this is weird, but i put my AC meter on the outside of the 240v breaker, and I get nothing. Very weird! The circut is 240v, nothing else on the line. On the 240 Breaker, there were 2 big wires on top, and on the bottom, just 2 regular A/C wires, I tried both of them with my meter, nothing! I think I am going to call PECO now. I set my AC meter on 500v. The meter is in the garage, I am hoping it is Peco and not the wiring inside of the house. (Peco is our electric company). Ill keep you posted, thanks for replying. And, there isnt any A/C to the water heater either, heh.

Thanks again,

Brian

[HA HA Budys Here]

IS this unit seperately metered with one of those secondary, discounted metered power for electric heating/ water heating?

[brian]

Yes, it is. And guess what? PECO lineman came out, and he checked the 240 line, just like I did, then went to the main. It was on an off-peak meter, but, the timer was bad. It was on the electric companies side, and not mine :) He replaced the meter with a digital one, and said that the other ones are very old and do not work well. Thank you guys for helping! I think when it got cold, it made the timer act intermittently. Well, there are 2 otehr meters, and this happens again, i know who to call.

[Stormin Mormonn]

Well, if the cold water coming in is too cold, it might take longer to heat. But it should still get hot. Is the "hot" water cold in the morning, for example? After all night to warm up?

[Colt]

Why are you heating , hot water , in the first place? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you talk with the animals, they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears, one destroys. Chief Dan George

[brianz]

It is fixed now, it was the outside timer (electric companies problem), it was just hard to troubleshoot, because I don't usually monitor the electric line on the water heater. Thanks for the reply, the hot water is great now.