In general there are three main components in an electric water heater.
Electric hot water heater thermostat test.
Electric water heater thermostats are a fairly simple devices that can fail from time to time.
Electric water heaters have one or two elements and each is controlled by a thermostat.
Testing is the only option if you want to determine whether or not one or both of them has failed.
Structure of water heater.
You can test them with the power off using an ohmmeter to measure resistance or with the power on using a voltmeter to measure voltage.
You will also need to check the water heater thermostat with digital multimeter tools.
This is important especially as open and grounded heating elements result in inaccurate tests.
One is the heating element second is the power switch to avoid overheating problem and the last one is the thermostat.
Usually when the upper thermostat goes bad you will have no hot water at all while a bad lower thermostat makes itself known when there is only a small amount of hot water before the tap water goes cold.
How to test water heater thermostat this case might happen for the defected thermostat.
When an upper heating element or thermostat fails the entire water heater stops producing hot water.
Upper thermostat makes it possible for you to have cold water supply when you turn on the tap of hot water.
In this case testing the thermostat is a little bit of a technical task but not hard at all.
Remaining always on is the most common issue with electric water heaters.
How to test a water heater element with a multimeter.
To look for faults you will need to use a screwdriver.
The electric heater has a total of two thermostats each performing distinct functions.
When a lower heating element or thermostat fails the top thermostat and element will continue to heat water in the upper half of the tank but you will notice the hot water quickly runs out or is only lukewarm.
Lower thermostat ensures that the hot water keeps coming and it does not turn cold when you turn on the hot water tap.
If the hot water heater is not working one of the thermostats may be bad.
If the thermostats are okay you need to test the water heater elements.
When a water heater no longer produces hot water.
Working of a thermostat.
Although most of the cases this scenario occurs for the power supply problems.