REALLY Fast Electric Water Heater

rhinoguy

How's this one for different? Fifty gallon water heater (State). Two separate pieces of #10 wire. Each element has it's own thermostat with over limit cutoff. It also has it's own 30 amp feed, and separate pair of breakers. ? Homeowner knows nothing about this wiring, says it was there when he bought the place twelve years ago. It has never given him any trouble, the pressure blowoff never popped. He ALWAYS has hot water. Weird! I didn't touch it. "If it ain't broke, don't ask for liability by touching it!" I put up some shelves in the utility room and left.

MSSI

Sounds like a "Tim the Tool Man Taylor" job...

mdshunk

I'm not so sure. I've wired two water heaters for two commercial laundries (same owner) that had a double feed. I assume it was one for each element. I guess you'd call that "ultra-fast recovery". No different than water heaters in series. One tempers the water, the the next one finishes it.

rhinoguy

Well, if it has been done by others, it must not give any (big) problems. I believe there was an expansion tank.

mdshunk

Doesn't matter how fast it is, safety wise. The stats will shut down the element when the proper temperature is reached. You could put 50 elements in a water heater tank. As long as they had appropriate thermostatic temperature controls and over temperature cutoff's, all is well.

mdshunk

Here's the wiring diagram for two feeds:




And here's the manual for a dual-feed water heater:
http://www.hotwater.com/lit/im/com_elec/195201-002.pdf

jpplumbing

was there an engery saving timer installed. i have seen some installed on rental water heaters that drop one element during off-peak hours to save money.

MSSI

Ive never seen one..are they common. I obviously dont get into water heating that much........Thanks for the lesson

rhinoguy

This is the first I have seen, but a friend of mine who is a plumber only says he has seen plenty of them, usually on bigger heaters. I have seen several gas in series with electric, not sure why. I have also seen the electric feeding electric. I'm sure it is faster to recover than a single heater.