Insufficient hot water with conflicting data

[derotam]

Ok so yes the subject seems simple but all my testing is contradictory. I need a good story for my wife so she and I can stay happy. Haha.

My water heater is an electric Whirlpool ES50R9-55 100.

This morning My wife and son were taking a shower(not long) and they ran out of hot water, and it went from hot to cold pretty fast.

I just spent the morning draining and troubleshooting this thing. Both elements read 10.1ohms. The thermostat is energizing both elements(separately of course) at appropriate times.

So my problem here is that we are having insufficient hot water which would indicate a lower element failure, but it seems to be fine, and is ohm-ing out fine.

Now the problem is that we never had this issue before with multiple people taking a shower when we had 5 adults in the house! We only have 2 adults and 2 small children.

So I guess my questions are, am I missing something, and given the elements are ohm-ing out seemingly correctly, could they still be producing low output due to mineral buildup or general degradation of the element? Attached is a picture of the lower element.

Thanks for any help!

 

[GrumpyPlumber]

With all info presented, my first guess would be the lower aquastat or the relay, but yes, that element could be the problem as well.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[derotam]

With all info presented, my first guess would be the lower aquastat or the relay, but yes, that element could be the problem as well.

The problem I have with all that is how do I prove it, and/or someone give me the theory as to how the element could be so bad even though it is ohm-ing out correctly.

This unit has an electronic thermostat that I can't find anywhere to even think about replacing. It is commanding power to the lower element(which is on right now after I filled the tank back up and after the upper element stopped heating).

Once all this water gets heated back up, I'm going to turn on some how water and see how long it takes for that lower element to get triggered. Maybe it is not being triggered right away but I don't know how to really figure that out with this electronic thermostat.

 

[Fitter30]

When ever ohming out a element the voltage that the meter is using is either 1.5 or 9 vdc according to the scale that the meter is set to. 1.5 vdc for low resistance and 9vdc for the higher scale. They use such a low voltage a connection in the element can be made at the 1.5-9 vdc but when 240 vac is put across it the connection opens up. That's why a clamp on amp meter is used to see how much work the element is doing one can be purchased for under $25 for household use. A megger is a ohm meter that uses 250, 500 or 1000 vdc to check resistance in a motor winding or a element. It will show a ground, a short or open when that much voltage is applied where a multimeter won't. He's a manual with a diagram towards the back page 23.

https://centriq-web-production.s3.amazonaws.com/ff60f238624456b73dd15c083fc26679615403b0.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20230508T210936Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=604800&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAVROQARFP6PCKABF4%2F20230508%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=04913ecdf736d3dbe3d548886ca872fc4846289ff22506687eec7403494d175e

 

[John Gayewski]

This is an old post I wonder if they ever figure it out, but it sounds like the dip tube broke off.

 

[derotam]

This is an old post I wonder if they ever figure it out, but it sounds like the dip tube broke off.

I never really figured out what the issue was. Dip tube was fine. I replaced both elements and that didn't change anything. My only assumption is that the thermostat had some kind of issue where it wasn't always turning on the elements at the right times and I never was able to catch it in the act.

My final fix was to just replace the water heater since the electronic thermostat was no longer manufactured, I couldn't really get a known good one easily, and I didn't want to fight with replacing it myself...and with a wife and two kids I couldn't just keep this issue around as a project to work on. haha.