Quick Sun Morning HW Heater Question

[dsprik]

Had a curious thing happen when I fired up the electric on the HW heater. We have a trusty Kill-A-Watt meter, which has worked great for a couple years now. We are running our HW heater on propane and we turn the electric on and off with the breaker switch, not the switch on the heater itself - as per MOC recommendations.

This morning I turned on the elect to help boost the propane for a quick shower and the meter actually GAINED a full amp. ??? I did this several times. Turned the breaker off and watched the amps DROP. Turned the breaker on an watched the meter jump up.

What's up with that??? Do I have a short - or what? Is my meter tired? Everything else electric draws it down. DW says the electric meter - I had her watch it - did pick up speed with the breaker on, so I am wondering.

I am paranoid about electrical problems in these flammable boxes we live in...

Any input?

[H. John Kohl]

I would think your meter is showing Amperage used. If it does then your situation makes sense.
Not knowing your meter I can only speculate. I would need the model and speck sheet to try and help more.
Good luck,

[capn chris]

Think John is right, Dave. The "Kill-A-Watt" measures usage, I believe, not delivery. Surprised it only jumped a little.

[dsprik]

It always has dropped when I increased my load on the main. And it did that when I started the dryer and then the toaster. It dropped from 122 to 119 with the toaster and about the same I think with the washer. When I threw the breaker on the HW heater, the volts went from 119 to 120.5. 3 times I did this to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

[HughM]

David, If you have a Kill A Watt meter it has 5 buttons on the front. The second button to the left shows "AMP" That will show how many AMPS are being used on that particular plug. If you were using the propane and then the electric hot water heater then the electric would notice that the water was already warm not hot and need fewer amps.
Therefore it's possible that the water was nearly hot and the electric heater electric heater element needed only a little power (amps) to complete the heating cycle.
The gain in amps is only if you had the second button to the left pushed in.
Hugh

[richfaa]

You need to have a device plugged into the kill A watt meter to read amp draw. When plugged into the wall outlet in reads voltage and frequency whe you push the selevted button. we went down to Daves camper 4 sites down from us and he was seeing was line voltage.

[capn chris]

Good job, Rich! What a guy. Helping a friend out?!! Glad Dave and Cheryl made it down there. How's his shoulder doing?

[dsprik]

Hi, Chris! Shoulder is doing better - if we are supposed to be looking at a year to recoup.

Rich is right. I have been talking about line voltage. We are on 50 amp and no load running around 122 watts. As soon as we start loading up, it starts dropping. While you can test individual appliances with the Kill-A-Watt, we use it mainly to monitor our electric use - ESPECIALLY when we are on 30 amp. In Central Lake, MI, when we started dropping to 116 from 121 or so, we knew we were on the verge of blowing the CG breaker.

[richfaa]

Hey Chris..How are you guys doing. The big guy is looking good and we and others will be doing chores for him for the rest of the winter. They are close enough to us so that we can steal his high speed internet signal when our aircard slows down.

[dsprik]

[quote]quote:Originally posted by richfaa

Hey Chris..How are you guys doing. The big guy is looking good and we and others will be doing chores for him for the rest of the winter.


They are close enough to us so that we can steal his high speed internet signal when our aircard slows down.
[i]

[Ozz]

Sounds like you got your question answered, but I would advise not to use the circuit breaker to turn on and off anything. If your circuit is under load, and you turn off the breaker, there will be arcing on the breaker contacts, it is designed to protect, not to be used as a switch. It will just shorten the life of it, and they,(the ones provided to us in our trailers) are not that well built to begin with. Good thing about it is that they rarely fail to protect, they just trip before they should, when abused.

[dsprik]

Really, Ozz??? I consider you one of the MOC resident experts, so I will take your advice, but I thought this was the consensus, as the it is the lesser of the two evils. The switch on the WH itself is supposed to be a low quality switch that fails easily. It is supposed to be a bear to replace relative to the breaker failing and needing replacement. That was why I was using the breaker.