[C320-list] Water Heater update

[Guy Smith]

Hi Doug,
I'm not at the Boat at the moment. Would you remember the amperage one needs to order a replacement breaker?
Best Regards,~g
Guy And Liz Smithsv Pleiades '97 C320 #452Worton Creek, MD

From: Doug Treff <doug at treff.us>To: "C320-List at Catalina320.com" <C320-List at Catalina320.com>Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2017, 8:56:56 AM EDTSubject: [C320-list] Water Heater update
A while back, posted a question about replacing the water heater
element. My question was regarding how difficult it was to get the old
one to turn.
I was having no luck getting the element to budge with the large Channel
Lock pliers that I had on board. I finally broke down and purchased a
water heater element socket from Amazon (1 1/2" special socket) and was
finally able to budge the element with a breaker bar. But it was still
difficult to turn it and I thought for a brief moment that the water
heater was going to come loose from it's mounting points.
The rest of the story is the following. Originally, the problem that I
was having was that the circuit breaker would trip as soon as I turned
on the water heater. Naturally, I assumed that the element was blown or
rusted out, so I bought a replacement element. Fast forward to Monday, I
finally got the new element installed, refilled the water heater and
purged the air out of the system, but the circuit breaker would still
trip instantly when activated. I just happened to have a spare breaker
on the panel due to some changes made by a previous owner, so I decided
to try moving the water heater over to the spare breaker. It worked!
So, the lesson here before you automatically assume that your element is
fried, see if the breaker is bad. I'm guessing that these push-button
110VAC breakers have a limited number of times that they can be turned
on and off before they wear out.
The other lesson here is that there's nothing like having the right tool
for the job! I already had an 18" breaker bar and the cost for the
socket from Amazon was $13.99 and it was well worth the cost in the end.
Any of you in the MD area who need to do the same job, feel free to
contact me and we could probably work out a loaner situation.
--
Doug Treff
doug at treff.us