Water Heaters: Simultaneous or Separate Heating Elements?

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Water Heaters: Simultaneous or Separate Heating Elements?

Рет қаралды 42,390

Жыл бұрын

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As electricians, we supply power to many water heaters. But for most of us, it’s a simple connection and that is all we know about them. In todays episode of Electrician U, Dustin talks about the heating elements within the water heaters and some different wiring/voltage used for them.
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Water heater connections are generally not overly difficult to understand. Just know that there are several different ways they can be connected and several different types. First, there is a single element water heater. Simple and straight forward, it relies on a single heating element to heat the water in the tank. This can be problematic if the tank is rather large or the demand is great as it could take a long time to heat that volume of water. A dual element water heater still has a single source of power, but splits that source between 2 elements which are controlled by a thermostat. As the hot water will RISE in the tank, and considering that the outlet pipes going TO your plumbing system are on the TOP of the tank, the top element will be used first. Once the water towards the TOP of the tank is heated to its set point, power will transfer to the BOTTOM element to heat the remainder of the water. A dual element water heater is generally much more efficient. On larger commercial systems, you may see simultaneous heating elements. These require 2 separate feeds- one to each element. While there is still a thermostat controlling overall tank temperatures, these feeds come straight from the breaker and do not swap back and forth, like a dual element water heater, depending on usage.
Remember from previous videos, electricity travels in loops. Water heaters/heating elements are no different. Current leaves the breaker on one hot, travels thru the load (in this case a heating element), and returns on the other hot completing the loop. You may also see single phase (lets say 240v) or 3 phase (maybe 208v) or even 3 phase 480v in some larger commercial settings. Many water heaters are also dual voltage. This means that they can operate on more than one voltage, depending on what voltage is present at the site. Since we are attempting to keep the same rating regardless of voltage being used, if we raise the voltage, we need to raise the amount of resistance to keep the same KW rating. If we run at a higher voltage (say 480v in lieu of 240v) we can hook up the water heater to use 2 elements (doubling the resistance since we doubled the voltage) and the water heater will act the same as if it was running on 240v. This is much the same as multivolt motors where we just use different (or a combo of) leads. It’s not overly difficult once you understand the relationship between higher voltage and the resistance required to keep the KW rating the same. You honestly just need to know what voltage you will be applying and then refer to the wiring diagram provided with the unit to see which elements you are going to jumper and in what sequence.
We hope this has been an insightful look into different water heaters and the heating elements located within them. Do you have any tricks/tips for hooking up water heaters? Leave us a comment in the comment section and let us know. Is there a topic you would like to see discussed on Electrician U? Again, leave a comment in the comments section and let us know! please continue to follow Dustin and Electrician U as we are constantly adding new content to assist our followers in becoming the best electricians that they can be.
#electrician #electrical #electricity

Пікірлер: 111

@berthongo8531 Жыл бұрын

One of the items we had to look at when performing pump rotation checks was the 480 v lube oil tank heater. I'd always tell the new guys that we could tell if it was wired incorrectly if the lube oil got colder instead of hotter. That was so much fun.

@AnonYmous-yi4zy Жыл бұрын

Love the drawing board! Really helps illustrate what you're talking about.

@Sparky-ww5re Жыл бұрын

Wow. Never realized there was a thing as a three phase element. I thought a three phase water heater had 3 elements top, middle and bottom and connected to A-B, A-C & B-C. Never heard of duel volt elements either but it makes sense of connecting them in parallel for the lower voltage and in series for the higher voltage.

@davidmurn772 Жыл бұрын

Funnily enough, the day after watching this video my twin element hot water system gave up the ghost after tripping out over the last week or two. After prodding around with my tick tester, I finally gave up on it and bought my first Klein tool (only based on your recommendation of the brand), the simple ET40 voltage tester. With a couple of minutes of prodding with the Klein tester, a faulty thermostat was diagnosed. The Klein paid for itself almost in its first use.

@Scotts_Status Жыл бұрын

You need to change the title of this channel to Einstein electric university because it seems like you you have to have a masters degree in electrical engineering to do the things you do! Absolutely love all your videos!

@tomdix5167 Жыл бұрын

Almost makes me re-think my career decisions, one of the problems with a parochial-college prep HS education. Hope none of my electrician buddies see this.

@mikerannazzisi821 10 ай бұрын

Very clear and informative. Where someone might get confused, is that you should probably draw line in the tank where it switches between both elements. It’s a much smaller tank on the top so the water heats up quicker. then it transfers over to the bottom tank which is bigger. I know you know all of this. But I think someone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at is going to get confused. You should just does every draw the line to show the quick recovery tank .

@thedillpickle100 Жыл бұрын

Or... There is a set of interlocking contactors switching the heater elements similar to a home hot water heater. The contactors would be in a box close by with fuses or breakers. Control wires, possibly 120v would go from the energizing coil(s) to a control panel with temp controllers and displays where an operation can monitor the temps, etc.

@Sparky-ww5re Жыл бұрын

A dual voltage element connected to the higher voltage is Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law in action. Some electric kilns, for example, have multiple elements and selector switches to control the firing rate, and depending on the settings, might use 2 elements in parallel, 2 elements in series, or something like that. If you were in an environment where say only 240 volts or 277 volts was available for some reason, you could for example, rig up two 120V 500 watt halogen worklights in series. The 277 volt system will make the lights brighter and not last as long, as you would have 138.5 volts supplied to each bulb, 130 volt bulbs be better in this example.

@ai4px Жыл бұрын

Something to consider.... if the heater is in the garage, it's usually a 30amp circuit. If you swap the bottom T-stat with the kind used on the top where it transfers current to another t-stat, you can feed an EV car charger off the 2nd thermostat. So after your water heater is satisfied, it can then charge your car at up to 24amps.

@ewicky Жыл бұрын

clever trick!

@garbo8962 Жыл бұрын

Would have no problem doing that genius trick in my own house but with so many sue happy lawyers and liability issues including not listed would not offer it to any customers.

@Sparky-ww5re Жыл бұрын

Very clever idea!! While on the subject of EV chargers and water heaters, specifically cord and plug connected. It seems that at one time, a cord and plug connection was allowed for a water heater, we found that while helping Dad remodel his 1973 ranch home. Panel was located in a bedroom closet, water heater was in the laundry/utility area on the opposite end of the home and connected via a nema 6-30 receptacle, as a means of disconnect. This is obviously no longer permitted, but you could use a nema 6-30 for a EV charger and water heater, and simply decide which to connect, if say there's limited space in the panel to add a new 240V circuit for an EV charger. I do not recommend this and am not responsible for any damages from following this suggestion.

@ai4px Жыл бұрын

@@Sparky-ww5re I gotta say that those plugs are not intended for daily plug cycles. The J1772 plug however is. If you are going to plug a portable EVSE in, please leave it there and don't unplug it every day. Now if you want to use the thermostat trick I mentioned above and put a 6-30 receptacle on that, ok then.

@ai4px Жыл бұрын

@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket Good point. Most cars charge at a max of 32amps. Exceptions are teslas and the new electric pickups. However, most cars can charge quite satisfactorily at 240v 12 or 16 amps. The rule of thumb is XX amps at 240v equals XX miles per hour charging. So 12amps gives 12 miles per hour. If the car is parked for 8 hours, that's 96 miles by morning. So your future proof 50amp outlet is quite correct, but a 24amp charger will cover an awful lot of people's cases. Most people drive 30 miles a day.

@ai4px Жыл бұрын

I am off grid solar and have a heat pump water heater. But it's backup heat source is the conventional 4500 w elements. Since 4500w would eat up 1/2 of my inverter power, I swapped them for 1500w elements. Takes longer to heat the water but it doesn't make me use interlocks of power management. Also the heat pump water heater pulls 360w when running in heat pump mode. So when the heat pump is functioning, I really don't even know the hot water heat pump is running.

@markpetri3405 Жыл бұрын

How long have you had your heat pump water heater? How do you like it? It sounds like it is a great choice for energy conservation.

@ai4px Жыл бұрын

@@markpetri3405 about six months. It’s in the basement. Serves double duty as a dehumidifier too. No issues. It just works.

@thechamp34king48 Жыл бұрын

Greatly explained in a very detailed manner bro, keep rolling!

@garbo8962 Жыл бұрын

In my area just about everyone has nature gas water heaters so only wired a few in and troubleshoot them. A fiend had super hard water that caused one of the elements to burn out every year. We have a large rich pharmaceutical plant nearby that installed an electric boiler during one of the energy shortages. Ran off 4,160 Volt three phase. Cost a fortune to run so they only turned it on once a year for halve a day during a weekend.

@jamesortolano3983 Жыл бұрын

Love this content ,as an HVAC-R installer. This did show quite a bit. That board you use to illustrate was definitely worth the money.

@MarioSanchez-gd7ek Жыл бұрын

Awesome video! Listen, I would really appreciate it if you could do like a financial aspect to what’s it’s like owning a company. Like bid pricing, material cost, how much time you have to finish the job and when you start to lose money in a job site. Thanks!

@gage5899 Жыл бұрын

I work at a car wash and we have a huge 480 volt water heater

@coreybabcock2023 Жыл бұрын

I saw a 480 v water heater at a Indian restaurant and we had a 3 phase pasta sink at Cicis pizza several years ago I used to do a lot of the electrical work for Cicis pizza and always did it to code never a issue

@drich1s Жыл бұрын

You should do a video about any experience you have with customers not trying to pay, and or how you go about protecting yourself from scandalous customers And what avenues to take if ever dealing with non paying customers.

@richsparkman9980 Жыл бұрын

Now I know why I am not an electrician this is way over my head good presentation

@pleappleappleap 7 ай бұрын

If we take as given that there is enough headroom in the main breaker, and we are able to easily run a second 240V circuit to the water heater, is there any downside to converting your sequential water heater to a simultaneous one?

@Tagerrun Жыл бұрын

The steam generators I used to work on would use 2 480 heating elements with a contractor controlling them.

@SamMcWhannel Жыл бұрын

You'll often find a lot of 600v electric water heaters here in Canada in large commercial buildings.

@rogerpenske2411 Жыл бұрын

My first house had electric hot water heater. At one time it actually had two different electric meters: one for the house, and one specifically dedicated to the water heater. Communist Edison then changed their billing such that a certain number of kilowatt hours were at a reduced rate, and everything went through 1 m. Electric hot water heater is extremely expensive, And the minerals in your water will destroy those heaters very very quickly. They must be flushed on at least a monthly basis.

@tedlahm5740 Жыл бұрын

Reduced rate for electric water heaters was done away with DEREGULATION of the industry. All on one meter now?

@Texas_krazy Жыл бұрын

It's a water heater, it doesn't heat hot water. I'm sorry bud, I hate correcting people, but on this topic I feel that I must.

@jeremynguyen2346 Жыл бұрын

@@Texas_krazy sport for asking questions on discord

@jeremynguyen2346 Жыл бұрын

@@Texas_krazy sorry for questions on discord

@rogerpenske2411 Жыл бұрын

@@Texas_krazy Of all people, Tex, You should know that a hot water heater does indeed heat hot water. I live in Phoenix, and for about five months of the year, my hot water heater heat hot water!

@rayives7758 Жыл бұрын

Actually, you can't tell from the photo whether it's simultaneous or alternate because you don't have the control portion. The element banks could be bridged in parallel off one contactor or controlled from two contactors.

@charleshill7184 6 ай бұрын

My $0.02 -- the "simultaneous" diagram describes how a tankless or "insta-hot" water heater works. Endless hot water in exchange for $$$.

@stevelopez372 Жыл бұрын

Good stuff. Living in SoCal. These issues will be important now that Commiefornia is pushing hard to go 100% electrification. Yes new homes this year will likely not be plumbed for natural gas. They are also going after existing housing stock. Don’t ask silly questions about the power grid handling all this usage. Lol. By the way California will be a Boom for electricians. At this point they are busier than other trades.

@onlineconsumer4796 Жыл бұрын

What happens if you take a 220v single phase water heater (4500 watts element) and hook it up to 110v? Does it just take twice as long or longer to heat? Does the wattage go up, stay the same, or go down?

@icanreadthebible7561 Жыл бұрын

P = IE Half the voltage results in half the wattage, and thus, twice as long to heat up.

@skroz1 Жыл бұрын

Power (W) is equal to V^2 / R, so by halving the voltage on the same element you will reduce the power output by a factor of 4. Likewise, doubling the voltage will quadruple the power. So a 10 ohm element will deliver 1,440 watts of heating at 120V, 5760 watts at 240V, and 23,040 watts at 480V. The surface area of the heating element becomes an important factor at this point, as you risk damaging the element if the watt density rises above what the material is rated to handle.

@ivandiaz5791 Жыл бұрын

@@icanreadthebible7561 Wrong. Current will not be the same. The other commenter is correct with his calculation.

@skroz1 Жыл бұрын

@@ivandiaz5791 Indeed, current scales linearly with voltage in a resistive load. We can use Ohm's law directly (I=V/R) or divide the watts by volts. In the10 ohm example above, the same element draws 12 A @ 120 V, 24 A @ 240 V, and 48 A @ 480 V. Answering the OP's question directly, powering an element intended for 220 V at 110 V will increase the heating time by _at least_ a factor of four. In an ideal case it would be 4x, but in the real world you have to account for heat loss from the vessel to the environment. You might never be able to reach your target temperature if the rate of energy you're adding (watts) is less than the rate of loss to the environment. Down that road lies the dragon "differential equations", though, so "at least 4x" is good enough. :)

@BaliFoodTreePlanter Жыл бұрын

@@skroz1 hi...want to hear more about damage

@howardbleier3881 Жыл бұрын

The person that sent that picture is not working on a regular water heater. That is a small Dri-steem humidifier. It's a low pressure steam generator.

@aldrehenry233 Жыл бұрын

Hey Dustin, Could you do a short video on how to wire a 2x2' lighting fixture with a LED emergency drive. Like which wire goes exactly where. Thanks

@BaliFoodTreePlanter Жыл бұрын

Where did you find your white board??? How much does it cost? What brandname?

@matthewshipsky977 Жыл бұрын

Can you do a video on grounding a multi family house. Example: 3 gang meter base feeding 3) 100amp panels, seperate ground rods or largerconductor and split bolt/daisy chain ect

@mesh1248 Жыл бұрын

Can u go over how to diagnose a problem with the different types of water heaters u described in the video

@seanobrien499 Жыл бұрын

Great video/content! I have a rental property and new tenant needs an 80 gallon H20 tank. Only one I can find is light duty commercial Rheem dual element that ships as a simultaneous element wiring 4500/4500. The spec sheet says it can be field converted to non simultaneous via the terminal block L1 & L2 single phase. I only have 30 amp dual pole 240. Have any experience with these types of commercial units that are field convertible? thanks in advance sorry so long!

@thomaswhite3829 Жыл бұрын

Does an electric hot water heat water as well as a natural gas one?

@jolyonwelsh9834 Жыл бұрын

There's a problem with the Y or star configuration. Unless the elements are also rated for 277 volts, you will be overdriving the heating elements and thus shortening their life.

@BaliFoodTreePlanter Жыл бұрын

For better access to potential clients pin your website, etc. And answer our questions promptly on that pin.

@mathman0101 Жыл бұрын

Nice one Dustin the visuals really work well.

@aubreyroche5080 Жыл бұрын

The Day I learned how a water Heater worked changed my Electrical career..... (Air..ray)..chuckle...

@josephnicolas2158 Жыл бұрын

Another amazing video! Thank you kindly for all you do! 🥰

@brandonguerra6968 Жыл бұрын

Could you do a video on trouble shooting / fault finding using the multimeter on electrical circuits and motors etc.

@TeamHeapMI Жыл бұрын

Ground faults on a 3 phase system is something I wish i had to do less in industrial facility's

@ItsDubstep57 Жыл бұрын

Hey Dustin, do you mind talking about troubleshooting . I’m experiencing a loss of power to a specific bedroom on a house and the breaker is tripped, there’s many reasons as we all know what would cause it to trip but wanted to see if you could make a video on troubleshooting residential breakers and circuits

@ianbutler1983 Жыл бұрын

I would put a clamp-on ammeter on a conductor and reset the breaker while I watched it. You can this was determine if there is a short circuit or if the breaker is defective. If the current draw does not exceed the breaker rating, the breaker is bad. If it exceeds the rating of the breaker, there is a short or low resistance faulting the circuit.

@johnwalker890 Жыл бұрын

Can i put my pop tart in the hot water heater to heat it up or use my furnace instead of the toaster?

@Sembazuru Жыл бұрын

I disagree with the answer you gave to the quiz. My answer would have been "you can't tell from that picture" because you don't see the other end of those two sets of 3-phase wiring. It looks to be industrial equipment, so I'll use industrial terms. Each of those sets of 3-phase wiring should be coming through contactors, one contactor for each 3-phase set. I haven't seen a dual ganged 3-phase contactor, but I don't see why that wouldn't exist, so in that case it would be simultaneous. If a single control wire is controlling both contactors it would be simultaneous (if it isn't obvious that the contactors are wired in parallel, look at the wire number labels if they haven't fallen off). If each contactor has it's own control wire then you still don't know. You then have to look at what is controlling the contactors to determine if it is set up to control in simultaneous or separate modes. IMHO, you are making too many assumptions on what you can't see.

@TeamHeapMI Жыл бұрын

Agreed, just by seeing that it seemed like it was industrial or commercial setting. Up top could go to a switch gear and ect

@rayives7758 Жыл бұрын

@@TeamHeapMI Definitely commercial. The only residential three-phase would be a large multi-unit and the individual units would be wired for single-phase anyway.

@rayives7758 Жыл бұрын

They could actually be driven off a single contactor. This is common is large industrial electric ovens where there are multiple three-phase banks in parallel.

@brianmcdermott1718 Жыл бұрын

Great info. Justin Thank you.

@PortlandSparky Жыл бұрын

in this video you had 240v with 3phase. wouldnt this be 208v?

@Sparky-ww5re Жыл бұрын

208V 3 phase would be a wye configuration. 240V 3 phase would be a delta configuration. Just depends on how the transformers are configured

@edsaye3402 Жыл бұрын

Just thinking that maybe you could explain how three phase panels can be CCW or CW.

@rayives7758 Жыл бұрын

If you're talking about how reversing two leads will change motor direction it's simple. If you have a phase sequence of A-B-C-A-B (remember you're dealing with a circle) and you switch A and C you get C-B-A-C-B. If you switch A and B you get B-A-C-B-A. B and C gives A-C-B-A-C. Note that each of the reversals has a C-B-A in it, the reverse of the original A-B-C.

@johnstancliff7328 Жыл бұрын

LOL! what a great teacher! you're great!

@sparkythebuilder Жыл бұрын

Thank you for not calling it a "hot water heater". 👍

@guygrotke8059 Жыл бұрын

Great idea: A heat pump toaster. More efficient than your old-fashioned toaster.

@rayives7758 Жыл бұрын

What heat pump is going to produce the temperature needed to toast anything without destroying the refrigerant? Remember that a heat pump is just a refrigerator in reverse.

@hulkangry5546 Жыл бұрын

I've installed many 480v water heaters. I didn't think it was that rare.

@stephenbordieri Жыл бұрын

7:08 ... HVAC/Plumbers have to use their brains from there, I landed my 3 wires, good luck lol classic electrician.

@GriffithCapitalGroup Жыл бұрын

Thanks for making these videos