ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Why don't water heaters have this?

LOL, I've seen that a few times before :P

Oh it's worse than that. Not only does it add cost, it kills sales! I mean, why would a HO replace a water heater when all it needs is a new heating element? As it stands now, all they know it's "it's broke" and they fix it by replacing it. The manufacturer has TWO good reasons not to add 20 cents worth of LEDs to the control board.

I have to agree that the last thing that manufacturers want is for you to actually know what is wrong. Water heaters have become such "throw away" items these days. Greg, I do like your idea though. I have thought about that same setup many times for my own unit at home.

I've often thought about running a second circuit to mine and wiring it so that both elements can operate at the same time for faster recovery. I talked to a plumber friend about this and his response was that you really don't want to mess with altering the listed design for legal reasons. I guess that I can see his point there.

Safety issues with water heaters and subsequent failures have become such "lawyer candy" that I'd be worried that any field modifications that I made would come back to bite me if there was ever a need for an insurance claim.

To be fair, there is something called "value engineering." Water heaters are a very good example of it.

Henry Ford was reported to wander junkyards, and to take notice of what car parts were out-lasting the entire vehicle. It was his opinion that 'proper design' meant that every component had essentially the same expected life; that additional durability in any component was wasteful.

From the day a water heater is installed, the clock is ticking. It will fill with sediment / scale; the anode will corrode away, the tank will corrode, seals will crack, etc.

So, let's look at the 'fault chain' here.
Say an element goes bad. First of all, a replacement might not accomplish much, if the tank is full of scale. Enough time may have past that the anode is gone, and the tank is rusting away. Worse, the T&P valve may also be obstructed by scale.

In short, remember: We're electricians, not plumbers. Replacing that heater might be the best solution.

For those who haven't seen this before, here is a video of what happens to even a tiny water heater when things go wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF_Wrm-Ns0I

I have had pretty good luck nursing along old water heaters. If I replaced one every time it got scale in the bottom I would need quick disconnects on the water lines and cord and plug connections. I usually pull out the bottom element and clean it with a shop vac about once a year.
My water heater is outside so a catastrophic failure is not really that bad. I am on a well so explosion is not very likely. It will just expand back into the pressure tank. I imagine that even in a worst case scenario, the PVC piping would let go before the tank.

I actualy wired indicators (12)to my parents furnace just so I could tell what its doing at any given time but I will admit it has been very useful in troubleshooting and verifing proper operation.

A.D

I thought about doing something similar with my furnace. I'd like to know at a glance when the backup electric heat is on and how many elements are active. Not that it really matters, you can already tell anyway, just more of a curiosity thing. I even thought about small hour counters per-element, but later realized that it doesn't matter. We still need the heat, so why punish myself with visual indications?

Ed,I agree we still need the heat but when you own a newer furnace that is as unreliable as my parents and mine in fact, Visual indications are a nice quick way for my parents to monitor what the furnace is doing and then let me know what they see happening OR not happening when there is a problem. Besides, visual indicators, and lots of them look kind of cool

A.D