Why is my electric hot water heater not heating?
Answers:
You might want to make sure that you don't have a reversed polarity situation. You can do this by swapping the two hot wires on one of the thermostats (after killing the power of course) beyond that this is a stumper. If that doesn't work get an electrician (although you sound well versed yourself.)
Good Luck
Other answers:
happens all the time.. you could have brought a defective thermostat.exchange it,,,,,,,,,,,
happens all the time.. you could have brought a defective thermostat.exchange it,,,,,,,,,,,
Time to call the pros.
If you know that much how come you don't know why it's broke ?
Connect a light bulb in series with the element and measure the voltage across the bulb and the element separately, The voltages will add up to 240V if you have current. You see you havent established that you have current. Another way is to clamp a "tong" tester or "clamp meter" around the active wire and measure the current directly. If you don't get the voltages to add to 240 or no current on the meter then you have a break in the circuit despite all your tests. A trap many electricians fall into is to test voltages around a circuit between the active conductor and earth. If the nuetral conductor is faulty this will not be found this way. Hook your volt tester directly to the active and neutral and see if it is 240V. The nuetral could still be dogey so hook something with a load direct to the active and nuetral (like a light bulb again) and see if it lights.
Often there is a overtemperature cutout switch nearby the thermostat; usually round and stuck on the body of the tank. It will often have push on terminals. This may have tripped making an open circuit. Some of them have a little reset button that will need a push (power off of course). Either way you need to establish that you have continuity through the overtemp cutout.
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