Electric Water Heater went up in smoke

UPDATE....Water Heater Fixed:

I went camping this weekend and I finally had a chance to look at it up close.

I ordered the relay on eBay! but I never got the part until Saturday (I was already out of town)So I thought about some of the replies about a loose connection.

The 120vac Black wire was fried up along with the connector



Looking at the relay in question all the connections showed no burn marks...just the one wire that burnt up so it seemed the relay might be good

I cut back the wire up to the point where I had good wire (Even cleaned it up with a wire brush) then I crimped on a new connector, Turned on the water heater and all is good. It worked all weekend and it went through several re heat cycles after showers.

When I got home Sunday my new relay was waiting for me so I now have an extra relay.

Thanks for all the help on trouble shooting this.

Chris

If the element was shorted, you would have tripped a circuit breaker. There was a loose connection somewhere. Replace relay, strip wires back to clean copper, replace all connectors. Make sure all connectors are TIGHT.

Doug

Thanks for all the quick replies........I will take another indeph look later in the week when i'm not working late...I will keep you posted

Just to clarify. ....The wire seems to have melted so I asumed it was the relay, I never checked the connection. This happened on the last trip of last year then a week later we got hit with hurricane Sandy so we lived in the TT for almost 2weeks and my generator died ontop of that so I just forgot about the water heater until this weekend when we did the first trip of 2013

Loose connection - you need to pinch the connector together or replace it.
I would not replace the heater - the element is nearly a short anyway.

I would look at replacing the heating element too.
Something caused that relay to fail.

shorted heating element was my best guess, too. bad connection is also a possibility. Given what is burned, I'd make sure to cut off and replace the spade connector on the wire as a burned connector is going to MAKE for a bad connection.

That relay uses 12V DC to operate it.
110V AC is switched via that relay.........that way 110V AC power isn't needed at the ON/OFF switch but just at the electric element area.

Get a new relay and then replace any/all terminals that are damaged. Strip wires back to good/clean wire.

Also check the electric element.....it probably shorted.

find and measure the resistance of the element.
prolly shorted.

I had a similar problem but mine was a loose wire connection. It could also be just a faulty relay due to stuck contacts.
Don