water heater won't run on electric

[lakedubay]

I had trouble with our water heater in our Bighorn fifth wheel,
I changed the anode rod and thought I had my problem solved. After 2 or 3 weeks it quit working on electric again, can anode rod be bad that soon? Last one lasted couple years.

[Old-Biscuit]

Hello......OP

Any luck finding issue with the electric side :H

[ths55]

Lots of good info here for you, hope you get it straightened out. Just for comic relief, I will tell you about when I had a similar problem last year. It worked fine on propane, but had stopped working on electric. I checked everything ( I thought) but wasn't till I was draining everything for storage that I saw a switch inside the outside cover that I had forgotten about ( was our first summer with this rig). Sure enough, with the switch turned on, the water heater worked just fine. I vaguely remembered turning it off when I was flushing the water system after we had bought it. Good luck and hope it's not a serious issue.

[WeBeFulltimers]

Endricken wrote:

Wires from the RV to the Electrical Box on the side of the WH may be loose (neutral wire nut connection failed for me).


Good luck!

This is EXACTLY what happened to mine just 2 weeks ago. Removed wire nut, trimmed both wires, and reconnected. Problem solved. If ever happens again will check this FIRST! BE SURE POWER IS OFF BEFORE STARTING! :E

[pcm1959]

Check the 110 fuse box. Mine quit working and I went through the same frustrating trouble-shooting to no avail. I fellow RVer on my brand forum told me to check the 110 circuit beaker box. Sure enough the neutral wire lug in the breaker box was never tighten and the wire had signs of even arcing. Can cause a fire! I tightened the wire and have not had any trouble since.

[Endricken]

The Switch (Little Black One) often fails (happened twice to me).
Wires from the RV to the Electrical Box on the side of the WH may be loose (neutral wire nut connection failed for me).
Circuit Breaker might be tripped or fail (mine failed to interrupt a short circuit eventually and started a fire in the WH Electrical box (Loose wire nut)).

After all that I rewired the WH from the Breaker to a 20AMP Residential Wall Switch mounted inside the RV (Bypassing the fried Box on the WH) directly to the Thermostat and installed a new Breaker in the panel.

These issues where when my RV was 3 and 9 years old.

Good luck!

[12th_Man_Fan]

Make sure you are getting good contact with your wall plug. I had the same problem with my last RV, for some reason it kept loosing contact in the wall plug. I finally removed the wall plug and direct wired the heater cord.

Doug

[joelc]

You will note that you have 2 reset buttons(black). One is for electric and the other is for gas. I had my electric one burn out, and replaced it. Note: They are NOT interchangable. So, either it is the heater or the contacts. You can look up the model heater you have and check the parts list for the proper unit.

[lakedubay]

Thank You Will try that

[Old-Biscuit]

Anode rod has NOTHING to do with heating on electric and/or propane.
It is a 'sacrificial' used to protect the glass-lined STEEL tank Suburban uses.

Electric heating element is under the cover next to drain plug.
AC power comes from your AC Panel via a circuit breaker.
AC Power goes thru On/Off switch (lower left corner in outside compartment-----may also have another On/Off electric switch inside if RV Mfg. added one)
From switch power goes to the set of AC thermostats (under cover above gas valve with 'push to reset' left one /right for propane)
Then from t-stats (High/normal) to element

If your Circuit breaker has not tripped and On/Off switch is ON......Push the Reset------if you feel it reset then it will heat until t-stat trips again.
That means 'normal' t-stat is not opening when it should and High temp is tripping to stop from over heating the water. New set of AC T-stats

If high t-stat is NOT needing resetting then electric element wiring could be loose or element bad. Tighten terminals screws if wiring loose. Bad element replace it.

Also check the wires on set of t-stats.....sometimes the rolled lip were cut out is for t-stats will cut insulation on wire...shorting it

[lakedubay]

Fuse is fine

[lakedubay]

Yes it was working and quit on electric, replaced worn out anode rod and it work 2 to 3 weeks, now not working on electric again.

[downtheroad]

anode rod has absolutely no baring on if the water heater works or not...gas or electric.

Are you sure you had water in the tank when you turned on your water heater? If not it only takes a few seconds to burn out the heating element..(easy to replace)

Also check the fuse.