Softus:
My guess was an educated one!!...and i was right...
You didn't guess, you deduced. And you had only two choices, so rejoicing at your success is a weeny bit early, IMO.
John...ive no clamp meter anymore...pity be handy for this...could use the multimeter to check current if it comes to it.
Your terminology gives you away - you aren't, and never have been, an electronics engineer. This won't change the advice that you receive though, because the rest of us are generally honest.
Ill check the resistance of the elements tonight but that aint going to tell me much other than one is completely shot...
That would be a useful piece of information to most people.
...which i doubt as it seems to be wired correctly and im getting hot water on seemingly both elements/selections....
You were the one that said the meter spins faster when the short element is in use.
...just the top half???!!
If you live in a hard water area then it's possible that you have nothing but scale in the bottom half.
My guess for thermostat is possibly that it may be positioned too high/or covered in scale...long element is switched on...heats water...hot water rises ...satisfies thermostat...element is switched off.
This grammatically challenged outpouring is more likely an explanation that it appears, at first sight, to be.
Since you say you have only one rod thermostat, it would be worth measuring it. If it's only 11", say, then it will switch off earlier than, say, an 18" one, i.e. with less hot water in the cylinder.
If this is the case, then your seemingly intuited suggestion of the problem being with the thermostat deserved more credit then I gave you, so I apologise for that.
in any case i really need to pop the unit out to inspect it properly.
Oh you
so don't need to do that. If you think that removing the dual element is easier than measuring resistance then you're crazy.
..whats the risk of damaging the cylinder doing this?
The relative risk is the product of several factors:
1. Age of cylinder;
2. Age of old element;
3. Method of sealing old element;
4. Competence in removing old element.
With the right tools and approach you won't fail to get the element out, but a sane person wouldn't ever put the same one back in, so if you're hell bent on removing it then you'd better get a new one first.
...(and subsequently ruining my weekend having to choose a new one and plumb it!!)
If the cylinder folded under the strain of trying to remove the element, then for your sake I hope it's a direct one, because with your approach the learning curve over a weekend would be vertical.
