Appliance Repair

How to Test a Water Heater Element

Set your multimeter to Ohms and check for a reading around 12.5Ω. Too high? Likely a pinhole. Too low? Bad element head. No reading? Check continuity. A good meter makes all the difference!
Electric Water Heater
Hard Skills
Electrical
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Transcript

 Okay, here we go. We're gonna test out an element to let you see on Ohms exactly what that does. These elements have a rate rating. It's usually about 12.5, 12.4 for these. Low guys. This one happens to be a 30, a 3500, 4500 style. If you see it right there, 4,500 watts, and it's basically a water heater element.

What you're going to do again is set your meter over to the Ohms category. Then you gotta take both your leads. You're gonna come over here and you see right here. I'm gonna test both sides of it.

Okay? And then what you're gonna have is your own reading for them. This one is right there at 12.6, just like it should be. So it's brand new. So I know that it was gonna be there, but if you get one that is rising up, it's going to be a pinhole inside the actual element. If you get one that is lower than that means that the head is going bad on it.

And if you get one that doesn't have or is not it, it can also be checked in continuity to make sure that it is continuous through it and there's no break in it. As you see, we're gonna do that and you can hear the beep of that sound. So you can do either one of those and that would definitely work.

Alright. Thank you guys. There you go. Just basic key, your element. Make sure that you get a really good meter too. That really does help with everything you're doing.