Suburban water heater replacement

Chris Bryant wrote:

Heff560 wrote:

Chris Bryant wrote:
Did you rewire adding a new 12 volt switch hooked to the new orange wire on the unit?

The extra orange wire was a bit confusing when rewiring. Using figure 4 on page 7 of the included instructions, I see the orange wire goes to a switch that I do not have. Where does this orange wire belong if I have no switch for it?

That is the problem- the DEL model uses a 12 volt relay to turn the electric element on and off, so without power to the orange wire, you will get not electric operation.
3 fixes- hook the orange wire to an always hot 12 volt lead, hook up a new switch for the orange wire, or bypass the relay, turning it in to a DE model.