Water heater not working

Rheem water heater not working



If you have an electric water heater and it is not making any hot water then you have a problem. The good news is that electric water heaters are not that hard to troubleshoot and there are not a lot of things that can go wrong with them. I will go over the things that can give trouble and how to fix them.

First off if you have some hot water but not as much as you did when it was new then you probably have a bad bottom element. Only the top element is working, so you are only getting about 1/3 of a tank of hot water, replace the bottom element and you will be good again.

If you are making steam, then you have a bad thermostat. While you are making the steam out the relief valve, check to see which element is working. The easiest way to do that is to see which element has 220v on the two screws on the element. That thermostat at that element is bad. Replace it and you will stop the sauna.

If you have no hot water then check the red reset button directly above the top thermostat. You may have to push very hard on it to get it to reset. If the reset is tripped then you have a bad thermostat. Finding out which one can be tricky and timing is important to catch the bad thermostat in the act.

No hot water can also be the result of the top heating element going bad. If the top element goes bad then the top thermostat will never get enough heat to trip on the bottom thermostat. Therefore you will get no hot water. Dual element hot water heaters for residential use, do not ever run both elements at the same time. Only the top OR the bottom will be energized at a time.

This all there is to checking an electric hot water heater. If you are having problems go through this list systematically and you will find your problem and be able to fix it.

Adjust temperature for water heater

Problem with Rheem 40 GAL ELEC TALL Water Heater 6YR SC 82VH402


I need to adjust water temperature, and don't have a manual. i have a 81v40d C model , 40 gal electric.


To help people understand how to adjust the temperature on their electric hot water heater.

Electric Hot Water Heater Temperature Adjustment

If your electric hot water heater is not getting your water hot enough or your water is too hot then you can make the adjustment easily yourself. There are a few things that you may need to know to do this. I will go over where the thermostat(s) are located and also how to make the changes.

The first thing to remember is to make sure that the power is turned off to the hot water heater before you attempt to open any of the covers and make any adjustments.

The next thing is to locate the covers which are over the thermostats and the elements. There are two on most hot water heaters, one for the top and one for the bottom. One or two screws hold these covers in place. They will look like this when you look at the front of the hot water heater.


When you have the cover removed you will see that the top thermostat, reset safety control and the element look like this.


The bottom thermostat and element look like this.



If you need to reset the hot water heater you push the red button on the top thermostat in hard till it clicks. To change the temperature setting on the thermostat you need to take a screw driver and turn the dial to the desired temperature either higher or lower as you prefer.

The elements can also be checked by using and ohm meter and checking for resistance across the two terminals of the element. If you get no resistance or a high resistance the element is no good. A normal reading with most meters will be somewhere in the 8-25 ohm range. This even gives a bit of buffer for different meters and the possibility of them being a bit out of calibration.

For most people a simple adjustment of the temperature settings will be sufficient to give you the results you want. Remember that you may need to adjust the thermostat for both elements to get the desired result. Also remember that you can get a longer time before you run out of hot water if the water is hotter and you mix more cold into it. The downside of that is the chances for scalding are greatly increased with hotter water. If you have small children or elderly adults, think carefully about what very hot water can do to them.

For higher efficiency you also want to keep the water temperatures as low as possible to reduce the residual heat loss of the stored hot water.