Why does my water heater keep blowing fuses?

[ez at nova]

I can't find anything on the net about this problem. My electric water heater is not old at all...maybe 2 - 3 years old. Since I moved in the house a year ago, it had been blowing the fuse it was on, about every month. I then put in the "slow-blow" fuses of teh same amperage and I got more life out of it, but they still blew. I did the tank maintenance where you drain the heater to get out any sediment, and actually, quite a bit of red/brown crud came out. It took about 20 10-gallon buckets to get it running clear. The fuse after that lasted about 2 or 3 months, but then that one blew, and then finally, a month later (today) the latest one blew again.
40 degree water for a Monday morning shower is less than amusing.

Anyone have any ideas as to what the problem is? I guess I may have to end up just calling an electrician.... but that's intercooler money damit

 

[1badTTA]

Look at the rating of the element and see how many amps it draws, then look at the wiring and see if it is capable of supplying enough current. Since you have fuses and not breakers I would assume it is an older house and the wiring is pretty shady which will increase the current draw. See if any wiring you can get at is warm when the heater is on, that is a good indication of a problem.

 

[Chuck Leeper]

????????

There are 2 elements in it.. upper and lower.. w/ that much crud in it, the lower element is likely shorted out...

W/ alot of crud in a short time, I'd be looking at an in-line filter system to eliminate the buildup.

 

[DCEPTCN]

I couldn't be further from an electrician, but I thought I'd share my experience of the last few weeks with you. Recently we had a problem with surging at our house, i.e. when the washer would change cycles we'd get a veritable disco effect with all the lights flashing and even lost a fuse during one of the 'fits'. My father in law was an electrical contractor for 26 years, so naturally I called him first. He found that alot of our connections had gone bad in the same way that your car's battery terminals oxidize. What he put on there were called (I think) nova (?) locks which better the connection and completely solved the problem for us. Perhaps if you've noticed any surging this could be of help to you.

 

[ez at nova]

Re: ????????

Originally posted by Chuck Leeper
There are 2 elements in it.. upper and lower.. w/ that much crud in it, the lower element is likely shorted out...

W/ alot of crud in a short time, I'd be looking at an in-line filter system to eliminate the buildup.

Thanks kind of what I was thinking. With all that crud (I guarantee the first owner never cleaned it for a few years) it may be too little too late after I cleaned it out.

You know, we do have an in-line filter system (one of the kinds that holds the cylinder carbon filter jobs). The privious home owner installed it... BACKWARDS so it did next to nothing. Now, since I reversed the filter so it functions properly, we filter a lot more junk out of the water.

Is this element thing something I can get into? Can I open the thing to look at them, or is this something I should leave to an electrician?

 

[ez at nova]

Originally posted by 1badTTA
Look at the rating of the element and see how many amps it draws, then look at the wiring and see if it is capable of supplying enough current. Since you have fuses and not breakers I would assume it is an older house and the wiring is pretty shady which will increase the current draw. See if any wiring you can get at is warm when the heater is on, that is a good indication of a problem.

The house wiring is mostly around 40 - 50 years old. We have a big circuit breaker pannel box that handles almost everything but the water heater. Then, next to that, is a little fuse box (2 fuses in it) which the water heater and God knows what else goes into for the other fuse.

 

[GN ERGY]

Find a friend that can OHM out the 2 heating elements for you. If you need to replace the bottom one you can get the numbers off of it and call the local appliance repair, parts store or WW Graingers carries that stuff. If you unscrew the fuse than you can replace the element yourself and save some $$$, it's not hard at all.
Tarey D.

 

[Eds87GN]

If that is a 230v water heater which most likely it is then it would use both of those fuses in that fuse box. If there are other wires going into that fuse box then the fuses might be overloaded when the water heater and the other items are on at the same time. Is it the same fuse blowing every time? May need an electrician on this one. If the water heater has 4500 watt elements, it will draw about 20 amps when its heating.

Since the heater is not that old, you should be able to remove the elements with a 1 1/2" socket. Of course, turn the power off first and drain the tank(although you can change them without draining it which saves alot of time). If you go through the trouble to take them out for any reason......change them.

The element wattage and voltage should be on a sticker on the side of the heater along with the serial number. In the serial number, look for 2 numbers after a letter to find the year the heater was manufactured.

Later,
Ed