I moved into my house one year ago and the water heater for my bathroom worked fine. The house was built as 4 separate apartments and each apartment has its own water heater connected to a timer. We moved and have been transitioning the home into one single family home. I turned off some of the water heaters at the breakers to save money on electric. The one that heats the master bath always worked fine and I left this one on for obvious reasons.
Soon after moving in the 200 amp main breaker started to trip when washer and dryer and water heaters were running simultaneously. To remedy this I started turning off the master bath water heater at the breaker when we did not need it. About six months ago when I flipped the breaker back on the heater never came back on. We had a spare water heater so I replaced the whole unit thinking the elements were bad, plus the whole unit was very rusty.
The replacement water heater was installed by me yesterday. It also does not work. I bypassed the timer in case that was the problem. I tested both elements and I get 13 ohms on each. When I test each leg of the power coming in from load to ground I get around 160v on each leg and I get 0 volts when I test the two legs together.
Is there something obvious that could be keeping me from getting the 220v to 240v that I need to power the heater?
Yes, USA. Also I should mention that this power comes from a subpanel and the previous tenant mentioned to me that on the 220v runs one leg may be from the subpanel and one may be from the main, which just confused and made me decide to post the issue with the wonderfully helpful people on the SDMB.
Check the circuit breaker that you were using as a switch. They are not designed to be used as a switch & they wear out much quicker when they are used as one.
Manually tripping a circuit often like you were doing, will often quickly take out the circuit breaker. I found this out when my dad did exactly what you did for the same reason. Only it was an oven & a water heater. The water heater had a short in it. After I replaced it, the mains did not trip anymore.
I am guessing that your water heater was indeed bad.
If the last homeowner is correct & the two legs of that water heater are going through separate panels, fix that. It is very dangerous and it is not to code. Hire an electrician if needed. A house fire is very expensive, to both the wallet & emotions, to say nothing about the risk to your loved ones lives. Trust me, I lost my oldest sister to a house fire, not pretty!
Also, anyone working on that circuit would logically expect that turning off one circuit breaker would turn off ALL of the juice to the water heater. Who would imagine that they needed to turn off two circuit breakers to make it safe to work on that circuit?
When you changed the water heater, did you check the voltage with a meter after turning off the curcuit breaker & before working on it? I hope so. Always do this, stay safe.
Is the breaker to the water heater a single pole or a two pole breaker?
You need to check the voltage at the main breaker. Both legs to ground, Both legs to neutral, both legs to each other.
L1 and L2 to ground should be 120 VAC.
L1 to L2 should be 220 to 240 VAC.
If you get the correct voltages there. Then do the same test at the sub panel (if only one feeding the heater)
I would also do amp readings at the main and subs.
The 160 volts reading that you got at the heater is all wrong.
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The 160 volts reading that you got at the heater is all wrong.
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In addition to the other screwy things going on like multiple disconnects, it sounds like there’s a loose neutral. Hard to say at this point where, though, until the heater is wired properly. Hopefully it’s just a side-effect of getting power from different panels.
To the OP - if you measure the voltage at the main breaker and get something like 160 on one leg and 80 on the other, stop and call the power company as you’ve got bigger problems that are beyond the ability of anyone here to repair.
Some of this has already been mentioned, but here’s my take on it.
Does your meter do peak-to-peak reading as well as RMS? Make sure it’s set on RMS if so. That 160 volt number is roughly in the right range for peak-to-peak but it’s way out of line for RMS.
You should measure 120 volts (+/- about 5 to 10 percent, depending on where you live) between either hot line (L1 and L2) and neutral. You should also measure about the same voltage between either line and earth ground. If the voltage is different between line and neutral and line and ground, then you’ve got a grounding problem.
If the 160 volts is not peak-to-peak, then it’s awfully high. If you get something like 160 volts RMS from one line to neutral and 80 volts between the other line and neutral, then you have a bad neutral connection somewhere. It might be inside the house (which is on your nickel) or it might be the feed from the power company.
On the other hand, if you get 160 volts RMS from both lines to neutral, then the power coming into your house is way out of spec and you need to get the power company involved.
Having each line fed from different panels is really, really, really bad. If they are both on the same phase (which is the impression I get if you have zero volts between them) then the only reason the old heater may have worked was that it had two heating elements, each 120 volts and each connected between one line and neutral.
My overall impression isn’t that you’ve got some minor problems that need sorted out. My overall impression is more along the lines of HOLY SHIT YOU NEED TO GET A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN IN THERE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!
And that’s my professional opinion as an electrical engineer with close to 3 decades of experience.
Ironically, despite years of climbing way too casually into cabinets with messy tangles of live 220 wires and 480 volt bus bars, the only time I’ve been shocked at work was reaching into a piece of equipment that I designed.