Water Heater T/Stat Settings and missing ground/flushing t..

[imported_bubinga1]

Question(s)
1: Should both T/Stats be set to the same temp?
The top one is set to 90 degrees, The bottom to 125.
Is this normal, or should they both be set to 125?

2: I could not find a ground wire in the breaker box going to the ground buss, so I removed the cover on the water heater and only find the 2 hots.
Shouldn’t this have a ground wire running to the gd.buss in the panel?
Or were they wired at one time with out a ground wire, I am thinking this is not good. I will Run a new cable if needed, as is an easy run. (#10,30 amp)
Also there is a short ground jumper running from a plate behind the top T/Stat
to the water heater outer case. I take it this where the Ground wire will hook up.(under the screw of the jumper on the inside)

3: How often should the tank be flushed and what is the proper procedure?

[DUNBAR]

There should be a ground on this water heater. I would pull a new wire from the panel to the heater with new wiring. I don't know why they didn't do this years ago; I run into this quite often.


Now as far as thermostats go, in my experiences with water heaters, I only adjust the lower thermostat up to 120 degrees, which is the highest I am allowed to set a water temperature for a customer. On Kenmore water heaters, there is no adjustment on top thermostat so that is the majority of heaters that I install.



The top thermostat is designed to maintain point of use hot water. With the exception of cold tank initial start up.

Depending on the water in your area, or whether it is city or cistern or well, I always recommend every 6 months to a year of a draining of tank.

On electric heaters, Shut electric off at panel, open valve at bottom of tank to clear boiler drain, then shut off water valve on cold inlet side of tank.

Open any hot side valves in the system to break vaccum to allow water to come out of the tank.

During this process, have a hose hooked to boiler drain and when tank is drained, shut off boiler drain and all hot valves in home.

Turn on cold water inlet valve to heater, allow for some water to enter into tank, then, open boiler drain at base of heater and use your foot and pulse the hose; this will shake up sediment in bottom of tank and allow some more dirt to come out. A ball valve for shut off to tank can also be used to create a "rocking" motion in bottom of tank to remove sediment.

Open all hot valves back up after this step.......let all faucets run until water emits from the hot side of faucet, shutting off the farthest first to the closest last.

Once you have established that tank is completely full, turn electric back on at the breaker panel.

[imported_bubinga1]

Thank You Steve
tony D.