"albee" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:43:07 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


"albee" wrote in message
. ..
I'm not getting any power to my upper thermostat, but checked the
breaker and have 120 and each pole there. I checked the top of the
heater, where the wires come out of the wall and attach to the wires
going into the heater, and I get 2.5 volts coming out of the wall.
Any thoughts on where/what happened?! Do I have to dig through my
walls?! FWIW, I'm in Tampa, FL area, home of massive lightning, which
we had yesterday, but only noticed no hot water today, after two
people showered okay. Possibly they had enough hot water even if it
went out yesterday? But still, I have power out of the breaker...?
Thanks.

I am guessing you have a 240 volt water heater. You must be checking from
each side of the breaker to the ground or neutral to get 120 volts. Go
across the two wires at the breaker. YOu should have 240 , but may not
be
showing any voltage, or some very odd low voltage. If so , one side of
the
breaker is bad or tripped. The reason you show 120 volts on each side is
the voltage if feeding through the water heater and that is where it is
comming from.

Thanks. I just re-checked just to make sure, and still the same,
although I did confirm that it's 240 between both poles. Actually,
fwiw, it's 237, and going from each to the neutral is 118 and 117 (I
think; could've been 118 and 119). But, clearly not zero.

I was measuring at the breaker by touching the screws, but thought it
possible that the wires weren't screwed in tightly. I tried testing
behind the screws, but couldn't get a reading. Am I right that
touching the screws won't necessarily give me what's coming OUT of the
breaker? I wiggled, or tried to, the wires, but didn't note any
looseness, and re-checked at the heater, still with no voltage.

I guess next step is to undo and re-attach the wires at the breaker?
Haven't done that yet, and hesitate to if not needed.

breakers can go bad. they're cheap.