6,000 Watt Panasonic Heater Shuts Down On Its Own.

[TravelerEastWest]

6,000 Watt Panasonic heater shuts down on its own.

We bought the heater two years ago and it worked very well until now.

I use it set at about 65% of the hottest setting.

The water suddenly got hot for about one second and then the heater shut down.

My thoughts are that the shutting down was a safety feature due to the sudden hot water - which casued no harm as the shut down was very fast.

So I think the actually problem is the sudden heating of water.

My question is what caused the sudden heating of water?

Should I simply buy a new heater and not spend too much time on this?

[Naam]

the sudden hot water and then shut down seems to indicate that you don't have enough pressure/flow.

[trogers]

My Stiebel had the same problem and needed replacing. Opened up the unit and found a lizard fried across the power terminals, shorting up the electrics.

[transam]

Or the thermostat is naff.

[Crossy]

I agree with the low flow suggestions.

Check the crunchy-bits filter on the inlet, remove the inlet pipe and there should be a small mesh filter that you can clean.

[Pib]

I've got a 6,000W Fagor water heater and about a year ago it had a similar problem in that sometimes within about a second of it turning on or sometimes when turning off the hot water it would trip an internal breaker...it would trip one of its four internal thermal/circuit breaker switches mounted on the heating elements. Reset the tripped switch and it would work again for X-showers and then the problem would reoccur. OK, I figured it might me a flow problem or more likely a heating element partially shorting out. And of course it was past its two year warranty.

Called the Fagor service folks here in Bangkok who came out to the house. As it turns out, the problem was not the internal thermal/CB switches but the flow switch...the flow switch was sensing the flow changes during turn on and turn off but it's assocated electrical switch which the main current flow passed through apparently was arcing when opening and closing causing a current surge/spike...enough of surge to pop above mentioned switch and once its associated main power panel 32A circuit breaker. The service call cost 500 baht for labor plus around 200 baht for the new flow switch. With the flow switch changed (easy, quick change) the heater has been working fine since.

The Fagor technician indicated my problem was not an uncommon problem...he had plenty of replacement flow switches in his toolbox. Wish I had bought an extra one at the time since I have two Fagor 6000W heaters, because I expect one will break again in the future and the flow switch may just be the problem. But the OP problem could be something different....so many different problems can occur with electrcial devices.

[harrry]

Your 600o watt panasonic should still be under warantee as they have a 5 year warantee.

[Pib]

Your 600o watt panasonic should still be under warantee as they have a 5 year warantee.

You sure....that's an awful long warranty for a water heater which usually has a 1 or 2 year warranty...unless maybe a subcomponent of the heater has a 5 year warranty.. Usually the only thing I've seen with 5 year warranty is an air con which will have a 5 year warranty on the compressor but only 1 to 2 years on the rest of the system. Same thing for a many water pumps where the pump motor will have a 5 year warranty but everything else only 1 year.

[TravelerEastWest]

Thank you everyone for the thoughtful replies.

It turns out that we had a leaking (very old - more than 20 years) water pipe on the ground floor near the water pump.

We had someone come out and break some concrete and we found the old rusting pipe quickly now our pressure seems good so hopefully the water heater will be fine.

If we have another problem and the flow seems OK I will check the filter and then the flow switch.