List,
I have a electric hotwater heater that was in the house when I purchased it in 1998. My neighbor thinks the previous owner installed it in 1989. The unit looks and operates fine, except for last weekend. Saturday morning I went to take a shower and found there wasn't any hot water. I went down and found the reset button on the upper element needed reset. At this time the temperature for the water was at 120.
Since I have never taken the panels off before I assumed this was the original setting. I state this because later that night when I went to take a shower the water was scalding hot. I had never seen the water coming out of my faucet that hot ever. I went down and lowered the temp to 110. The next morning was fine, I went to take a shower Sunday night and found no hot water again. I reset the element again and it has been working fine ever since.
Because it's been working fine I don't know if my first assessment of replace the elements is the only thing I should do? Any insight or direction would be great.
Thanks..
Tom.