Suburban Water Heater Thermostat Replacement

I drove the 60 miles and bought the Suburban 232306 thermostat. Realized the small thermostat niche had a screw in the center and that I would have to engineer to make the Rheems, Camco, or Everbilt thermostat fit. dougrainer's comment above captures the problem. As it was starting to storm here; I went with the Suburban. These other hardware store thermostats have a 170 degree limit, not 150 as I had been previously told. Also a reset and variable temp control for under ten bucks. All the single element electric hot water tanks are 120V wired to a thermostat to an electric coil with a pressure valve; basically all the same; however, the Suburban thermostat was the easiest to install, so I went with it. Thanks for all the help on this one: I have hot water again just before it started snowing.

Old-Biscuit got the problem: the coil side hot out of the thermostat burned up because the thermostat compartment insulation got wet and shorted with the tank. Important to tighten the cover screws good and I am now sealing with silicone.

PS: For ten years, the Suburban reset button has never worked once. Hope everyone else has had better luck with that.