Water heater smells like.
Water heater thermostat burnt.
Burning rubber or plastic if you smell burning rubber or burning plastic turn off the power source at the breaker first before trying to pinpoint the smell.
If the electrical contacts on the thermostat mounted outside the water heater are overheating the plastic parts around the switch may overheat and burn.
Thermostat burned up etcetera.
When this happens the heating element will burn out prematurely after heating the water to excessive temperatures.
Hj az a shorted element depending on where it is shorted would either cause the water to overheat and trip the eco or trip the circuit breaker but not overload the thermostat or its connections.
Finding the source of the leak will tell you where fault lies.
You can see if the pilot light is out by removing the cover of the water heater and inspecting the light.
Your water heater will usually have directions on how to relight it.
Thoroughly clean the bare wire ends of any coating or corrosion to bright copper and crimp the wire ends together tightly insulating the resulting connection with heat shrink tubing.
I have a 3 year old kenmore electric water heater.
The lower thermostat melted i am not sure why just yet.
Remove the cover panel s from the front of the heater and then disconnect the wires from the heating element terminals.
By the second day it was getting stronger and smelt like a burning smell coming from the water heater area.
If this is beyond your expertise get an electrician to do it.
Using a continuity tester available from electrical supply houses place one test probe on each of the element terminals.
The water heater is running 240 volt on 10 awg wire with a 30 amp breaker at the box which never tripped.
Cut out the overheated wire.
After opening it up we discovered the red wire on the bottom element was burning.
What causes burned wires on electric water heater thermostat.
It had bared the red off the wire about 6in along it and also burnt the plastic cover.
The heating element could be grounding out which will result in the heating element staying on.
Water came from somewhere possibly upper head weld caused corrosion and arcing of contacts inside thermostat.
I need to go and buy a volt ohm meter to test the element.
Strip back the insulation the correct amount for an appropriate crimp connector.
Keeping the hatch covers on tightly is good as it likely prevents much oxygen from getting to the fire snuffing it out.
