AC Water Heater

[jonmhammond]

A friend of mine has a problem with an AC Water Heater. He bought it last month and installed it himself. After about a week it stopped working and there was a small leak coming from the thermostat area. He sent it back to the manufacturer and they promptly sent him a new one but warned him that there was a hole in the element that had most likely been caused by galvanic corrosion. He said he has never had problems with that before and that the boat is well protected. My first thought is that the heater must have been installed incorrectly and maybe is causing a leak from neutral to ground, setting up a stray current from the element to the ground, which is dissolving the metal of the element very quickly. Any comments or thoughts on this would be much appreciated. These types of electrical problems are always brain twisters for me :O

[tuberider]

corrosion is by dc current. i think the manufacturer is crazy and just had a bad element installed. nothing is impossible though and i'm sure there's theories abound that will explain the corrosion. do you have a bonding wire attached to your heater casing? that will get things started.