No hot water in the A.M. - possible reasons?

[snowdog]

I'm having a strange problem with my (relatively) new hot water heater - it is only 2 years old and had been working perfectly up till now.

The past 2 days trying to take a shower in the morning the water is lukewarm at best. I have to turn the handle all the way to 9 o'clock which normally would be super hot but now is just barely warm. But if I let the water run a long long long time - or try again later in the day - it's the way it should be.

Does this point to a thermostat type problem (one of the thermostats not sensing right and not keeping the tank warm overnight?). Is there any EZ way I can troubleshoot things further myself before calling a plumber?

My heater is an electric "Bradford White", model M250560S5, 50 gallon.

Thanks for any advice!

[HayZee518]

power is fed first to the upper thermostat. once the upper is satisfied it transfers to the bottom element. if the upper's contacts are burnt off, the bottom element will never turn on. once you've drained the stratified hot water at the tank top the cold water eventually makes it to the top and the stat turns on the upper element. I'd change the upper thermostat. if you have a meter it is very easy to troubleshoot.

[snowdog]

Thanks HayZee. I do have a voltmeter. What would you do to troubleshoot your hot water heater if you had this problem?

[snowdog]

UPDATE: This morning I have practically no hot water period. Had enough lukewarm water for maybe a 2 minute shower. Let faucet run for 10 minutes and still ice cold. Strangely in the kitchen I can get lukewarm though. Am in the process of finding a plumber - unfortunately the folks who installed my heater are no longer in business.....

[HayZee518]

look in Illustrations - Hot Water Heater wiring. Here you'll find schematics how a water heater is wired. NOW BE VERY CAREFUL! Set your voltmeter to its highest range above 240 volt. Measure your line voltage across wires black and red. should be 240 volts. read across each element for 240 volts. go from the common side of the lower element to the line side of its thermostat should be 240 volts. do the same with the upper element. tell me what you read.

[snowdog]

I decided to go with a "pro" and let them do the troubleshooting/work.

Not going into a whole long story (first plumber I had come out had NO CLUE what he was doing, it was unbelievable), seems that the bottom element was bad. It has been replaced and I will see how that turns out.

I now have a wierd problem that I will ask about in another thread but wanted to say THANKS for the answers in this thread, also that from watching what was done etc I could have done this myself if I had a decent pump & saved myself $300.....

[ROSALIE]

I like these comments.