Thread: Who knows stuff about electric hot water services?

So you only have a bottom element?

Yes, one 6kw element. Oh, and it's 400L, not 200 like I said earlier.

Hot water tanks usually have an outlet a fair way down from the top, and an inner curved plastic tube extending into the very top of the unit. My guess is that it has fallen off. If you unscrewed the outlet fitting and allowed the water level to drop you should be able to probe into the tank to see if this is true. If the tank has dual outlets you may be able to use the opposite one.

If you have top mounted fittings then there would be an internal tube delivering cold water to the bottom of the tank. If this fell off the cold water would mix with the hot water at the top of the unit, cooling it quickly.

This is getting more puzzling; the cold water inlet is at the bottom of the unit, so I guess there's no dropper pipe. The hot water outlet is near the top of the unit, so I guess there's no riser pipe either. I've read a suggestion that the tank may be partially full of sediment, but it seemed to be a sudden change in the available volume of hot water so that doesn't really make sense. Still eager for suggestions.
We raised four teenage girls on this hot water unit, I used to get a tepid shower now and then with six of us in the house but we've had more hot water than we could use now that there's only 3 of us here. I had the second shower yesterday, in & out in about 90 seconds and it was already starting to get cooler.

Hi,
What is the state of the safety overflow? Are you bleeding hot water out of a valve that is not seating properly?
If it is, open the valve a few times to flush it, turn the main water tap off, open the safety valve again and let it spring shut, turn on water mains and check for water bleeding from the overflow.
Cheers

Thanks, the safety valve has a rigid pipe attached that disappears into the slab, presumably to a drain pipe. I'll disconnect the pipe at the valve so I can see if it's letting water go.

Hi,
Feel the pipe where it goes into the slab. It should not be hot because the heat should not conduct that far down.
Cheers

My guess without more info is you have a split element