wiring Question

I was wondering, I just installed a new water heater due to the fact that the old one sprung a leak. Got the same size heater with the difference of both inlet and outlet are now on top instead of the old one having the hot on top and cold on bottom side of the tank. I mad new copper lines and installed the heater and noticed it had a green wire coming out of the heat along with the red and black and the old one only had the red and black wires. They are both 240v heaters. Now my question is do I leave the green wire grounded to the tank itself or do i connect it to another wire? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time.

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Originally Posted by PJSRACER99

do i connect it to another wire?

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Do not connect it to the red or the black wire.

It's a safety ground, and with new installations, should be connected back through the wiring to the panel's ground. It will work without it being connected. Not sure how your local code people would want it on a retrofit verses new. It will improve the safety, but should be okay.

Ok thats what I fugured buthere is my issue, when i hooked it all up I filled the tank, bled all the faucets, and then I tunred the breaker on. The water was hot the morning after but just hot enought to take a shower without having to use any cold water,so I turned both thermostats up to 150 thinking they were not high enough. Next morning it produced it seemed like water at 150 or close to it but the hot water only lastewd long enough for 2 short showers and did not heat any more. So I changed both thermostats. Still no hot water. Both heating elents have continuity. What do I do next?
Thanks again for all your input.

1. The green wire you saw bonded the heater's jacket to the water tank.
2. The is a green screw on the top of the heater next to the junction box, which SHOULD be attached to a ground somehow.
3. WHY would you replace the thermostats on a new heater without testing to see if they were even the problem?
4. I do not test elements for continuity, I test them for amp draw to see if they are actually working.
5. Did you test the red "reset" button to see if it has popped out?
6. Other than that we cannot help you without being there to actually TEST the various components to see IF any are defective.

Are you sure you don't have the hot and cold lines reversed? Depending on the length of the showers, you could easily exhaust a 50-gallon tank. You can get maybe 40-45 gallons out of it before it cools off a lot, and with a 2.5gpm shower head, that's only about 8-9 minutes a piece, depending on how much cold you added (which would add to that time).