How to check the heating element of a washing machine with a multimeter. How to ring (check) the heating element of a washing machine? Check if the ten works

One of the key elements of a washing machine is a heating element or tubular electric heater, which is responsible for heating the water and maintaining the required temperature during washing. In order for the machine to last a long time, it is necessary to monitor the condition of the heater, but before you check the serviceability of the heater in the washing machine at home, you need to understand how it works and where to look for it in the unit.

We identify the breakdown

In the absence of water heating, the machine can continue to work as before, and it is rarely possible to detect a breakdown in the first stages. Therefore, first, let’s look at the signs by which we can judge whether a part is broken, and, accordingly, the need to check the heating element of the washing machine for suitability. There are not many of them.

Signs:

1. Unpleasant smell of laundry after washing;
2. When washing, the sunroof glass remains cold;
3. Linen is not washed.

If you notice one of the signs, most likely the heating element has stopped heating the water. The reasons for the failure of the heating element may vary.

Important! Every problem with household appliances has its own prerequisites. If you have an idea about them, you can eliminate the risk of breakdown and significantly extend the service life. Read our articles on the topics:

Causes:

1. Part breakage or short circuit. In this case, the washing machine will either stop working or continue, but not for long, since other parts of the machine can easily be damaged or burned.
2. Heater circuit failure. With this problem, the device may continue to behave as usual, and then the breakdown will be difficult to diagnose immediately. But if the machine takes longer to wash than usual or freezes during washing, it is possible that the problem is an open circuit.
3. Pressostat failure. The pressure switch is equipped with a sensor that is responsible for the level of collected water. During normal operation of the device, water is drawn to a certain level, and after that a signal is sent to the electronics to turn on the heating. It happens that the parts responsible for the water level become dirty as they are used, and the dirt that settles on them does not transmit the heating signal. If you suspect that the car does not heat up for this reason, clean the pressure switch and check the operation of the device.

Important! Often, users do not pay attention to the fact that the machine did not finish the wash on time or did not complete part of the program, and blame the electronics for failure. But if the equipment refuses to perform any functions, most likely this is not a failure, but a signal for help.

How does the heating element work?

This type of heater consists of a metal pipe, inside of which there is a spiral, heated by the action of electric current on it. There is also a material inside the pipe that transfers heat from the coil to the walls of the tube.

With frequent use, the spiral inside the heating element wears out, and it heats up worse and worse.

Important! If you do not take care of the device, the spiral may completely burn out. In this case, the washing machine will stop heating water.

If you suspect that the heating element is working or the washing machine no longer heats the water, you should check it.

Where to look for heating elements?

There are two options for where the heating element can be located in washing machines - front and back. You can find and determine it using the following methods:

1. Inspection of the car. Move the washer away from the wall. If the wall at the back is large enough, then most likely the heating element will be located right under it.
2. Raise the car and look underneath it from the bottom up. This way you can see the exact location of the heater.
3. Remove the protective panel located at the back of the machine. This way you will see whether the heating element is at the back.
4. After removing the cover, look at the bottom of the drum - that's where you will find the heater.
5. If the heating element is located in the front, we proceed in the same way, but remove the front wall.

When you find the heating element, you need to check it for integrity. This can be done by removing the heater completely or unscrewing the fasteners and removing the wires.

Important! In order not to remember how the wires were connected, simply take a photo of the connected device from different angles.

If you decide to remove the heating element completely, unscrew the central nut and press the bolt so that it goes inside. Next, the element is carefully picked up with a flat tool, such as a knife or screwdriver, but so as not to damage either the element or the tank. Let's look at how to check the heating element in a washing machine at home.

Heater check

Before checking, you should understand what data can be considered normal and how they are designated. The test involves using a multimeter or tester.

Important! The norm ranges from 20 to 40 ohms, depending on the power of your washing machine. There are also particularly powerful models in which the resistance can be up to 60 ohms, but if the meter shows a value of less than 20, then the heating element is definitely faulty.

To check the heater you need to find out its resistance or ring it.

Data:

1. U is the symbol for voltage. If there are no additional conditions, then a regular outlet produces a voltage of 220 V.
2. P - means heater power. The wattage will vary for different washing machine models, so check the instructions or labels on the appliance for wattage information.

Important! The normal resistance of the heating element can be calculated using the formula:

R = U*U/P

The data obtained is measured in Ohm units, and this is what the measuring device should show during normal operation of the device.

Let's look at the calculation using an example.

Example

For example, the machine has a power of 2100 W, so the formula will look like this:

220*220 (U):2100=23.05 Ohm.

Important! The data obtained indicates the standard resistance of the heater. Next you need to check whether the value corresponds to the norm.

We call heating element

In order to ring the device, you need a special device - a multimeter, and then you should take a number of actions:

1. Unplug the heater.
2. Remove all wiring going to the heating element.
3. Take a measuring device, set it to a mode in which the resistance in OM will be indicated at a value of 200.
4. Connect the device to the terminals of the heating element.

Malfunctions:

• If the device shows the number 1, this means that the heater coil has broken and needs replacement.
• When the number 0 or values ​​close to zero are displayed on the display, a short circuit has occurred inside the heater.

Important! If the heating element values ​​are within acceptable limits, you should proceed to the next stage of testing.

Checking for breakdown

It happens that the spiral in the heater works without failures, but there is a malfunction in the conductive material that is located between the spiral and the walls of the pipe. In this case, the incoming current can pass through the heating element and reach other parts of the washing machine and its body.

Important! This is completely unsafe, because a breakdown can lead to electric shock, and in case of severe breakdowns, sparks may appear from under the device, and even a fire may occur.

In order to check the heating element for breakdown:

1. It is necessary to set the dialing mode on the multimeter.
2. In this mode, the meter wires are connected to each other until a sound signal appears and the indicator lights up.
3. Afterwards, with one end of the device they touch the terminal of the heating element, and with the other, either the ground terminal or the body of the device.

Important! If there is a squeaking sound, the heating element needs to be replaced, since there are breakdowns in it. This way you can check the heating element of a washing machine or any other device that has a similar heater.

Check without measurements

In addition to measurements, you can check the heating element in other ways:

1. If there are black dots on the body, the device has breakdowns and must be replaced. To determine the presence or absence of dots, it will be necessary to remove scale from the heater. This can be done by soaking it in a strong solution of citric acid.
2. If there are no apparent reasons for disassembling the machine, you can pay attention to the electricity meter. Turn on the machine in a mode where it uses all its power, see how the meter readings change. If the speed of its counting has increased, the heating element is in working condition.
3. Before dialing, carefully inspect the device: if swelling, scratches, cracks or other damage are noticeable anywhere, the heating element should be replaced.
4. There is an option in which you can check the part for breaks without using a tester. An electrician's test lamp is required for this. You can make it yourself or purchase it in specialized stores.

Important! If you have already partially disassembled the washing machine to get to the heater, it makes sense to immediately remove all dirt from other parts. For example, use our master class to

A tubular electric heater (TEH) is an electric heating element in the form of a metal tube of arbitrary shape, in which a spiral of nichrome or fechrome wire with leads at the ends is placed. To insulate the spiral and transfer heat from it, the tube is filled with quartz sand. The heating element has no polarity, so it does not matter to which terminal the phase and zero are connected.

Almost any modern electric heating devices, such as an electric kettle, an iron, an automatic washing machine, or a heater, use heating elements as a heat source.

If heating does not occur in an electrical appliance, this does not mean that the heating element has failed. It is quite possible that the cause of the malfunction could be a switch, thermostat or other controls. But usually the heating element is checked first, since checking it is not difficult. Any home master, having read this article, even without experience in checking and replacing heating elements, can easily cope with this task by choosing the most accessible method of checking.

Design of a tubular electric heater (TEH)

As can be seen from the drawing below, the heating element is a metal tube made of copper, stainless steel or iron, in the center of which there is a nichrome spiral, twisted in the form of a spring.

The tube inside is completely and tightly filled with sand, which allows you to effectively remove thermal energy from the spiral and prevent it from coming into contact with the tube. The ends of the spiral are connected by welding to contact rods, which are fixed inside the tube using ceramic insulators. To supply power voltage, threads are cut at the ends of the contact rods or contact plates are welded.

Tubes for the manufacture of heating elements are used in different diameters and, depending on the purpose, they are given different shapes, up to spiral-shaped. A good example is an electric boiler.

What are the types of heating element malfunctions?

Most often, heating elements fail due to the breakage of the nichrome spiral thread, which occurs due to the melting of the nichrome thread due to its overheating. Overheating occurs if a thick layer of scale has formed on the heating element or the heating element, designed to operate in a liquid medium, is turned on without it. The coil can burn out due to the initial low quality of the heating element.

The spiral in the center of the heating element tube is held in place by its dense filling with sand. If, when filling in sand, it was poorly compacted or the spiral moved from the center to the wall of the tube, then over time, due to vibration, the spiral may move and touch the inner surface of the tube.

If the spiral touches only at one point, then in the absence of connecting the grounding wire of the RCD in the apartment electrical wiring, the heating element will not lose its functionality and the electric kettle or any other heating device will continue to work. But in this case, there is a possibility of a phase getting into the body of the product, and if it is metal, then there is also the possibility of electric shock to a person when touching the body.

If the electrical appliance is grounded, then as a result of shortening the spiral, the released power will increase significantly and if the circuit breaker does not work, the spiral will melt and the heating element will fail completely.

If the spiral touches the tube in two or more places at the same time, as in the photograph, then in the absence of grounding and an RCD, if the circuit breaker does not operate in time, the spiral will immediately burn out.

Thus, heating elements can have one of two malfunctions - a break in the nichrome spiral or a short circuit to the metal tubular shell. Any of these failures cannot be eliminated and the heating element must be replaced.

In modern electric kettles, multicookers and irons, the heating element is welded to the body of the product, and when the heating element fails, you have to buy a new electrical appliance.

How to check and ring the heating element

Depending on the availability of measuring instruments, you can check the heating element in one of the following ways. Measure the resistance of the spiral and the resistance between the spiral and the tube using a dial tester or multimeter, ring using a phase indicator or an electrician's control.

Checking the heating element
using a dial tester or multimeter

To check, you need to turn on the device in the minimum resistance measurement mode and touch the leads of the heating element with the ends of the probes of the device.

If the spiral is broken, then the pointer tester will show a resistance equal to infinity, and the multimeter will show “1” instead of the real resistance, which is equivalent to infinite resistance.

It is enough to enter into the calculator windows the voltage for which the heating element is designed and its power. Typically these values ​​are embossed on the tube. You can use information about the power consumption of an electrical appliance. For example, the resistance of the heating element of an electric kettle with a power of 2000 W will be 24.2 Ohms.

If the spiral is intact, then you need to touch any of the heating element terminals with one end of the multimeter probe, and the metal tube with the other. If there is no short circuit between the spiral and the tube, then the dial tester will show infinite resistance, and the multimeter will show “1”. If the device shows a value different from the specified value, then a short circuit is evident and such a heating element is not subject to further operation.

Checking the heating element
using LED and battery or power source

If you don’t have a tester or multimeter, or the Krona-type battery in the multimeter is dead, then if you have any LED, and they are in almost all household electrical appliances, and any battery, even a dead one, with a voltage from 3 V to 12 V, you can successfully check any heating element, including an electric kettle.

In the photo you see how you can use a dead Krona battery removed from the multimeter (the voltage at its terminals was only 5 V instead of 9 V), a 51 Ohm resistor and an LED to check the integrity of the heating element coil. Just remember that the LED is not a light bulb and must be connected with correct polarity. Since the heating element itself has a resistance, when checking the coil using an old battery, you can do without a resistor.

If the LED lights up, it means the spiral is intact. To check the insulation resistance, you need to disconnect the circuit from any of the contact rods of the heating element and touch the heating element tube. The LED should not light up.

If you don’t have a battery on hand, you can successfully replace it with any AC or DC power source; any charger, for example, from a cell phone or laptop, will also work. In this photo, power is supplied from a DC source using alligator clips. The LED shone confidently when the voltage changed from 2.5 to 12 V.

Checking the heating element using a phase indicator

Attention! When checking the heating element using a phase indicator and electrician control, care should be taken. Touching exposed parts of a circuit connected to an electrical outlet may result in electric shock. In other words, touching the body of the heating element and its terminals with your hand after connecting to the outlet is unacceptable.

If you have an electrician’s phase indicator on hand, you can also use it to check the serviceability of the heating element. In this case, the insulation resistance (between the nichrome spiral and the tube) will be checked with greater reliability, since when checking with a multimeter, a voltage of no more than 9 V is applied, and when checking with an indicator, more than 220 V.

To check, you must first determine where the phase is located in the socket (according to the rules it should be on the right) and then connect one of the contact rods of the heating element with a piece of wire to the phase terminal, as shown in the photo.

If, when you touch the opposite terminal of the heating element, the indicator light does not light up, it means that the spiral is broken, and if it lights up when you touch the tube, it means that there is an insulation breakdown (the spiral touches the tube).

Checking the heating element using an electrician's control

Almost anyone can check the heating element using an electrician’s control, since no measuring instruments are required. The essence of the test is to connect any light bulb in series with the heating element spiral, followed by connecting the circuit to 220 V household wiring.

To prepare for the test, you need to take a plug with a cord and connect one end of it to any contact terminal of the heating element, and the other end to the electric cartridge. Next, an additional piece of wire is connected to the second terminal of the cartridge. Any light bulb rated for 220 V is screwed into the socket.

First, the free wire from the socket is connected to the free end of the heating element, as shown in the diagram above. The plug is then inserted into the socket. If the spiral is working properly, the light bulb should shine brightly. If there is no light, then the spiral is broken and you don’t have to check it further, since the heating element is not subject to further use.

Next, the plug is removed from the socket and the right terminal from the socket according to the diagram is connected to the heating element tube, as shown in the photo. The plug is inserted into the socket; if the light does not light, it means that the insulation resistance between the spiral and the tube is high and the heating element is working. If the light bulb starts to glow, then there is an insulation breakdown and it is unacceptable to operate such a heating element.

Non-standard ways to check heating elements

If it is not possible to check the heating element using one of the above methods, then you can connect the wires from the cord with a plug directly to the terminals of the heating element and insert the plug into the socket for a few seconds. If the heating element starts to heat up, then the coil is intact. Be careful not to get burned with your hand when checking the heating temperature of the heating element.

To check the insulation resistance, one of the ends of the cord, with the plug removed from the socket, must be disconnected from the heating element output and connected through a fuse designed for a protection current of no more than 5 A to the heating element tube. Then insert the plug into a household electrical outlet. There is no time limit here. If the fuse does not blow immediately, then there is no short circuit between the coil and the housing and the heating element is working.

It is simply unrealistic to list all possible ways to check the heating element. The heating element can even be checked using a landline telephone by connecting it to a break in one of the wires with which the phone is connected to the network. If after connection there is a signal in the removed tube, then the heating element is working. You can even not pick up the phone, but call him from your mobile phone. The presence of a bell sound will confirm the integrity of the heating element coil.

Today, the use of a boiler to heat water has become very popular. This process is carried out through the use of a tubular electric heater or other type of device. Sometimes it happens that the heating element becomes unusable and the water in the boiler no longer heats up. In such cases, repairs are necessary.

The most likely reason why the heater has lost its functionality is a malfunction of the heating element. It occurs as follows: ranks:

• burnout of the filament, which is located inside the heating element;
• short circuit of the incandescent wire, as a result of which the electric water heater suffered from an electric shock;
• the formation of a large amount of scale on the surface of the heating element, which does not allow the boiler to perform heat exchange. Consequently, this directly affects the operation of the device - the water heats up less and less every day.

To check the serviceability, you need to understand at least the basics of electrical engineering and stock up on the necessary devices and tools. Without a tester or digital multimeter, it is extremely difficult to check the serviceability of the heating element. Tools you may need include pliers, Phillips and flathead screwdrivers.

To find out the reason why the device stopped heating during Well, first of all, the heating element needs to be removed from the boiler. After this, the device must be descaled. Inspect the outer shell for various types of blisters, cracks, holes and other visual damage. If you notice such breakdowns, then you should not place high hopes on repairs. In this case, the heating device must be replaced with a new one.

If you do not observe any signs of breakdowns, you need to ring the heating element using the most common multimeter or tester.

The verification procedure occurs in two ways:

1. It is necessary to check whether the nichrome thread, which ensures the incandescence process, has failed. To do this at home, the tester must be set to circuit test mode. Then the tester terminals should connect to the contacts of the heating element. If the device's needle tends to zero, you can be sure that everything is in order with the spiral. If not, then there is a break in the thread, which is why the heating element does not work.
2. Check for a short circuit in the spiral. To perform this, you will need to connect one terminal of the tester and the heating element. And with the other contact you need to touch the boiler shell. If the tester shows a target, this means that the coil is resisting the insulation of the heater, that is, it is touching the body, which means that the heating element must be replaced.

A tubular electric heater (TEH) is an electric heating element in the form of a metal tube of arbitrary shape, in which a spiral of nichrome or fechrome wire with leads at the ends is placed. To insulate the spiral and transfer heat from it, the tube is filled with quartz sand. The heating element has no polarity, so it does not matter to which terminal the phase and zero are connected.

Almost any modern electric heating devices, such as an electric kettle, an iron, an automatic washing machine, or a heater, use heating elements as a heat source.

If heating does not occur in an electrical appliance, this does not mean that the heating element has failed. It is quite possible that the cause of the malfunction could be a switch, thermostat or other controls. But usually the heating element is checked first, since checking it is not difficult. Any home master, having read this article, even without experience in checking and replacing heating elements, can easily cope with this task by choosing the most accessible method of checking.

Design of a tubular electric heater (TEH)

As can be seen from the drawing below, the heating element is a metal tube made of copper, stainless steel or iron, in the center of which there is a nichrome spiral, twisted in the form of a spring.

The tube inside is completely and tightly filled with sand, which allows you to effectively remove thermal energy from the spiral and prevent it from coming into contact with the tube. The ends of the spiral are connected by welding to contact rods, which are fixed inside the tube using ceramic insulators. To supply power voltage, threads are cut at the ends of the contact rods or contact plates are welded.

Tubes for the manufacture of heating elements are used in different diameters and, depending on the purpose, they are given different shapes, up to spiral-shaped. A good example is an electric boiler.

What are the types of heating element malfunctions?

Most often, heating elements fail due to the breakage of the nichrome spiral thread, which occurs due to the melting of the nichrome thread due to its overheating. Overheating occurs if a thick layer of scale has formed on the heating element or the heating element, designed to operate in a liquid medium, is turned on without it. The coil can burn out due to the initial low quality of the heating element.

The spiral in the center of the heating element tube is held in place by its dense filling with sand. If, when filling in sand, it was poorly compacted or the spiral moved from the center to the wall of the tube, then over time, due to vibration, the spiral may move and touch the inner surface of the tube.

If the spiral touches only at one point, then in the absence of connecting the grounding wire of the RCD in the apartment electrical wiring, the heating element will not lose its functionality and the electric kettle or any other heating device will continue to work. But in this case, there is a possibility of a phase getting into the body of the product, and if it is metal, then there is also the possibility of electric shock to a person when touching the body.

If the electrical appliance is grounded, then as a result of shortening the spiral, the released power will increase significantly and if the circuit breaker does not work, the spiral will melt and the heating element will fail completely.

If the spiral touches the tube in two or more places at the same time, as in the photograph, then in the absence of grounding and an RCD, if the circuit breaker does not operate in time, the spiral will immediately burn out.

Thus, heating elements can have one of two malfunctions - a break in the nichrome spiral or a short circuit to the metal tubular shell. Any of these failures cannot be eliminated and the heating element must be replaced.

In modern electric kettles, multicookers and irons, the heating element is welded to the body of the product, and when the heating element fails, you have to buy a new electrical appliance.

How to check and ring the heating element

Depending on the availability of measuring instruments, you can check the heating element in one of the following ways. Measure the resistance of the spiral and the resistance between the spiral and the tube using a dial tester or multimeter, ring using a phase indicator or an electrician's control.

Checking the heating element
using a dial tester or multimeter

To check, you need to turn on the device in the minimum resistance measurement mode and touch the leads of the heating element with the ends of the probes of the device.

If the spiral is broken, then the pointer tester will show a resistance equal to infinity, and the multimeter will show “1” instead of the real resistance, which is equivalent to infinite resistance.

It is enough to enter into the calculator windows the voltage for which the heating element is designed and its power. Typically these values ​​are embossed on the tube. You can use information about the power consumption of an electrical appliance. For example, the resistance of the heating element of an electric kettle with a power of 2000 W will be 24.2 Ohms.

If the spiral is intact, then you need to touch any of the heating element terminals with one end of the multimeter probe, and the metal tube with the other. If there is no short circuit between the spiral and the tube, then the dial tester will show infinite resistance, and the multimeter will show “1”. If the device shows a value different from the specified value, then a short circuit is evident and such a heating element is not subject to further operation.

Checking the heating element
using LED and battery or power source

If you don’t have a tester or multimeter, or the Krona-type battery in the multimeter is dead, then if you have any LED, and they are in almost all household electrical appliances, and any battery, even a dead one, with a voltage from 3 V to 12 V, you can successfully check any heating element, including an electric kettle.

In the photo you see how you can use a dead Krona battery removed from the multimeter (the voltage at its terminals was only 5 V instead of 9 V), a 51 Ohm resistor and an LED to check the integrity of the heating element coil. Just remember that the LED is not a light bulb and must be connected with correct polarity. Since the heating element itself has a resistance, when checking the coil using an old battery, you can do without a resistor.

If the LED lights up, it means the spiral is intact. To check the insulation resistance, you need to disconnect the circuit from any of the contact rods of the heating element and touch the heating element tube. The LED should not light up.

If you don’t have a battery on hand, you can successfully replace it with any AC or DC power source; any charger, for example, from a cell phone or laptop, will also work. In this photo, power is supplied from a DC source using alligator clips. The LED shone confidently when the voltage changed from 2.5 to 12 V.

Checking the heating element using a phase indicator

Attention! When checking the heating element using a phase indicator and electrician control, care should be taken. Touching exposed parts of a circuit connected to an electrical outlet may result in electric shock. In other words, touching the body of the heating element and its terminals with your hand after connecting to the outlet is unacceptable.

If you have an electrician’s phase indicator on hand, you can also use it to check the serviceability of the heating element. In this case, the insulation resistance (between the nichrome spiral and the tube) will be checked with greater reliability, since when checking with a multimeter, a voltage of no more than 9 V is applied, and when checking with an indicator, more than 220 V.

To check, you must first determine where the phase is located in the socket (according to the rules it should be on the right) and then connect one of the contact rods of the heating element with a piece of wire to the phase terminal, as shown in the photo.

If, when you touch the opposite terminal of the heating element, the indicator light does not light up, it means that the spiral is broken, and if it lights up when you touch the tube, it means that there is an insulation breakdown (the spiral touches the tube).

Checking the heating element using an electrician's control

Almost anyone can check the heating element using an electrician’s control, since no measuring instruments are required. The essence of the test is to connect any light bulb in series with the heating element spiral, followed by connecting the circuit to 220 V household wiring.

To prepare for the test, you need to take a plug with a cord and connect one end of it to any contact terminal of the heating element, and the other end to the electric cartridge. Next, an additional piece of wire is connected to the second terminal of the cartridge. Any light bulb rated for 220 V is screwed into the socket.

First, the free wire from the socket is connected to the free end of the heating element, as shown in the diagram above. The plug is then inserted into the socket. If the spiral is working properly, the light bulb should shine brightly. If there is no light, then the spiral is broken and you don’t have to check it further, since the heating element is not subject to further use.

Next, the plug is removed from the socket and the right terminal from the socket according to the diagram is connected to the heating element tube, as shown in the photo. The plug is inserted into the socket; if the light does not light, it means that the insulation resistance between the spiral and the tube is high and the heating element is working. If the light bulb starts to glow, then there is an insulation breakdown and it is unacceptable to operate such a heating element.

Non-standard ways to check heating elements

If it is not possible to check the heating element using one of the above methods, then you can connect the wires from the cord with a plug directly to the terminals of the heating element and insert the plug into the socket for a few seconds. If the heating element starts to heat up, then the coil is intact. Be careful not to get burned with your hand when checking the heating temperature of the heating element.

To check the insulation resistance, one of the ends of the cord, with the plug removed from the socket, must be disconnected from the heating element output and connected through a fuse designed for a protection current of no more than 5 A to the heating element tube. Then insert the plug into a household electrical outlet. There is no time limit here. If the fuse does not blow immediately, then there is no short circuit between the coil and the housing and the heating element is working.

It is simply unrealistic to list all possible ways to check the heating element. The heating element can even be checked using a landline telephone by connecting it to a break in one of the wires with which the phone is connected to the network. If after connection there is a signal in the removed tube, then the heating element is working. You can even not pick up the phone, but call him from your mobile phone. The presence of a bell sound will confirm the integrity of the heating element coil.

According to statistics, failure of the heating element in a water heater is a fairly common occurrence. Every fourth owner has encountered at least once the fact that the device stops heating water, despite the fact that lights and indicators indicate that the device is correctly connected and all wires are in good working order. There are also situations when the water heater suddenly breaks down, which is completely unsafe for all family members. And there are often cases when the “automatic machine” in the device constantly turns off, which entails changes in the power supply, short circuits and malfunctions in all wiring.

The reasons listed above are often the result of the fact that the heating element in the water heater has stopped functioning. But don’t rush to call a technician or throw away the device itself - you can check the heating element for integrity yourself. To do this, you will need a minimum of available tools and a little knowledge from the field of school physics.

A simple option is to replace the tested heating element with a known good one.

Of course, the easiest way is to replace the heating element with a heating element that is considered to be in good working order. To do this, you will have to turn off the water heater and remove the unit being tested. After this, a new heating element of the same type, or better yet brand, is installed in its place. The device is checked for functionality. If the water reaches the desired temperature, the element being tested can be discarded.

But what is recommended to do if there is no spare heating element in the house? Then you need to find a digital multimeter. The heating element is removed from the device. Then a multimeter should be connected to the terminals of the heating element. If the indicator lights up or the data on the tester deviates, we can say that the heating element is working and the cause must be looked for in other elements.

“Ringing” the heating element: how to carry out this check yourself and what is required for this?

If the measures listed above did not help determine whether the heating element is working, you can “ring” it. To do this, you will need a special device called a multimeter. We set the value to “continuity” and check the values ​​by connecting the probes. As a rule, the multimeter shows the minimum resistance values, and if there is a sound signal, it emits it (boringly beeps).

The next step is testing the heating element for performance. To do this, the tester probes are installed on the contacts of the heating element. When the probes touch the heating element, the multimeter displays resistance values, for example, 0.71 or 0.37. If a unit appears on the left of the display, this means that a break in the spiral has occurred in the heating element, therefore.

Another example of how to check for “leakage on the body”. The heating element is removed from the water heater; its copper tubes must be moistened with water. One multimeter probe is connected to the copper tube, and the other should touch one of the contacts (terminals) of the heating element. If it is faulty, the device will show a minimum (with a minus) or, conversely, a huge value. In the case when there is no “leakage to the housing” in the heating element and it is working properly, the tester will show a so-called open circuit, for example, number 1.

Below are examples of digital multimeter values ​​on different heating elements.

The manipulations described above will not take much of your time. But if you doubt that you can correctly disconnect the faulty heating element and install a new one, contact a specialist. And be sure to follow all prescribed precautions when repairing and testing your water heater!