Any plumbing /electrician or water heater experts.

[Stangrcr1]

My experience with Square D has been good with everything except VFD's(Variable Frequency Drives). They tend to fail after a few years. At my work, they always buy the Square D's at initial install because they are cheaper, and then when they fail, we on the shop floor replace them with ABB. Eventually our engineers will realize it's cheaper overall to buy ABB to start with, but maybe not.

We have had a couple ABB VFDs fail, but we call the rep and have replacements next day at no cost except to ship the old drive back. Square D wants the old drives back for "investigation" before providing a replacement.... We can't have equipment down that long. Many of our ABB drives are 15+ years old and still going.

We have some Telemechanique stuff, and they have held up so far...


And as far as the water heater, testing input power with a meter should have been the first step, then continuity of the thermostats, resistance of the heating coils. Would have saved some grief.

 

[george3]

You should of posted this before you rebuilt the heater. Allways check the breaker output first.

 

[WrenchDad]

You should of posted this before you rebuilt the heater. Allways check the breaker output first.

I agree, I know that now. However I wouldnt have found this problem checking the breaker first. The initial problem was a bad element, ( Ichecked resistance and that said it was bad. so for $28 bucks I changed them both.I didnt lose power until I tried to restart after the element change. When I didnt get power I thought the thermostats were bad (that made sense and they were cheap) so I replaced them. After that when I didnt have power I was out of experiance So I got advice and checked the breaker. Total in parts including the breaker was $75 bucks so Basically I'm all new and good for another 15 years.

 

[MB165]

Federal Pacific was a big name here in the states back in the 50's-60's. I remember an electrician coming to my house and when he saw I had an old FP panel he broke out in a sweat.

Apparantly they got a well deserved bad reputation for breakers not kicking off when they should..the older they got, the more dangerous they got.

I-Team: Faulty Circuit Breakers in Thousands of Homes Could Cause Fire | NBC New York

I since upgraded to a commercial grade Square D



.

when we came across a FPE panel doing generators, the customer automatically got a estimate for a new loadcenter :laugh:

 

[Newoldstock]

My experience with Square D has been good with everything except VFD's(Variable Frequency Drives). They tend to fail after a few years. At my work, they always buy the Square D's at initial install because they are cheaper, and then when they fail, we on the shop floor replace them with ABB. Eventually our engineers will realize it's cheaper overall to buy ABB to start with, but maybe not.

We have had a couple ABB VFDs fail, but we call the rep and have replacements next day at no cost except to ship the old drive back. Square D wants the old drives back for "investigation" before providing a replacement.... We can't have equipment down that long. Many of our ABB drives are 15+ years old and still going.

We have some Telemechanique stuff, and they have held up so far...


And as far as the water heater, testing input power with a meter should have been the first step, then continuity of the thermostats, resistance of the heating coils. Would have saved some grief.

Cutler Hammer has some very good drives too.
Electromotive has one made by Yasawa in Japan thaqt is an excelent reliable unit too.
ABB makes a very good drive too.
I used to work on the marine propulsion thyristor coverter used in this adapted to trucks.
This is probably the most difficult conditions you can expect a drive to be reliable.
They held up well...
This is 910 the grand old lady of the K1050 fleet from 2002.
Resting confortbly today in a concrete grave 4000 feet under ground.
101 5709 - YouTube

Then there were these fellows from Reliance.
It took several years to learn how to make them work, but when they did the sounds they generated were like music.
You tell by ear what the drive and hte motor were doing .

I saw the silpacs from GE starting the Ignitron types through too the SCRs.
Thats something hard to find a picuture of....

SAme for the Rapcons.

They are still out there you know but its the cool new tottaly computerized systems that get all the praise.

 

[Camjamsdad]

I agree, I know that now. However I wouldnt have found this problem checking the breaker first. The initial problem was a bad element, ( Ichecked resistance and that said it was bad. so for $28 bucks I changed them both.I didnt lose power until I tried to restart after the element change. When I didnt get power I thought the thermostats were bad (that made sense and they were cheap) so I replaced them. After that when I didnt have power I was out of experiance So I got advice and checked the breaker. Total in parts including the breaker was $75 bucks so Basically I'm all new and good for another 15 years.

Don't wanna burst your bubble but at 15 years your water heaters life is over. It's only a matter of time before it springs a leak.

 

[WrenchDad]

Don't wanna burst your bubble but at 15 years your water heaters life is over. It's only a matter of time before it springs a leak.

I thought of that but it does have a life time warranty against leaks. The cheapest new one (with a 6yr limited warranty) is $268 and $489 for a 10yr limited. So If It does go I can swap all this new hardware to the warranty tank and I'm good for $75

 

[Newoldstock]

Funny how they do not last.
I was just noting this at work today as I watched the one in my shop leaking ( does not help we get over presure surges ).

I recall back in the day we used to get stone lined tanks.
They had some sort of cemented stone product stuck to the steel inside in cpontact with the water.
They lasted a good deal longer.

At camp I have one from Gulf oil.
I have no idea how old it acctualy is but I removed the oil burner and made a fire box for it.
I pick up sticks and scraps around the camp and make a small fire before breakfast, then I have hot water all day.

It so old the outer shell has rusted out from rain leaking down the stove pipe ( its not really well sheltered near the water tower.)
But it does not leak after what seems like 20 years of season use + how ever old it was when I found it at the dump.

Its also a stone lined tank.
The first one infact that made me aware how much longer these oil and gas ones last compared to the newer ones.

This firebox is much too big!!!!!
You need a small fire this will make a boiler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4-hVPSCXQM