elect side of water heater died

IF you have a Suburban Brand.....
Separate set of t-stats for electric and gas
In outside compartment top left is a cover with Push to Reset.
Push the button in and see if it resets...you will feel it.
One on left is for electric....right for gas
The manual reset is for the ECO (High temp t-stat) it will trip OPEN when normal fails to OPEN.
IF you reset and electric works.......replace the set of t-stats as the normal is bad.
IF not t-stat then probably element
Element is in outside compartment under cover behind gas valve


IF you have an Atwood Brand......
Does the gas side work?
If gas works then it isn't a t-stat problem as electric/gas use the same set.

Then it could be bad element.
Element is under cover on backside of tank (inside RV)

First find the electric heat element.. If it is an Atwood that will be on the "Back" (inside the motor home) I do not know where suburban put theirs.

When connecting test lamps make sure POWER IS OFF.

Look for voltage, A test lamp is my insturment of choice. If the light comes on the heat element is bad.. If not..

On my Atwood next to the heat element is a box.(Junciton box) inside is a relay, again check for power.. NOTE: Dangerous voltages exist even when heater is off) The relay coil is 12 volts the contacts should have 120,, Check for 120 to contacts and then 12 to contacts.

If no 12 to contacts the control board is the problem, if 12 volt but relay not closing relay is problem

NOTE: some (Suburban I think) have independent electric and gas Thermostats, if yours does, THEY can be the problem.

My problem was opposite yours, Mine worked fine on electric, no joy on gas.. Control board fried..

If control board. check out Dinosaur boards.. I really like the way they build their products..

By chance, did you flip on the electric when there was no water in the tank. If you did, it only takes a couple seconds to burn up the heating element.

If you can get to the heating element put a volt meter on the terminals to see if it is getting power. If it is then the element probably needs replacing.
If there is no power the problem is bigger and will require quite a bit more investigation to solve it.
I recently had to pull my heater completely out of the rig to replace some fried wiring. Let's hope it is just the element.
For immediate help search this Forum for `water heater' then search the results for `element' and pick and choose the posts.