I heard a very loud bang and now the electric water heater is putting out steaming water.
I suspect a transformer somewhere blew and possibly fried the temp controller on the heater.
Whats the make and model of water heater?
Most likely bottom t stat when out hence the steaming water. sounds like its in runaway mode. If so the upper breaker will trip soon and you will/may have no hot water.
Welcome. You heard a loud bag where? You were sitting on the front porch and heard something down the street? Or you were in the living room and don't know where it came from? Regardless, until you isolate the problem, the first thing I would do is switch off the breaker to to the water heater, at least until you or an electrician can determine that the incoming power is correct. Do you have a meter, and are you comfortable using it? At this point it could be anything from a blown transformer in your area to a bad thermostat, or anything in between, but out of control hot water is dangerous.
It is set in Smart mode.[img]http://i64.************/20fq4gm.jpgI pushed the reset, the diagnostic indicator light light went out and came back on. The manual says that indicates "power applied and operating correctly". There was no error condition indicated before I pushed the reset and there was no self diagnostic test performed.
The temp was set almost to 150 and I turned it down to 120.
Last edited by philetus2; 04-15-19 at 11:00 AM.
I don't know whats wrong with the images. They were showing in my answer before I clicked Save.
Last edited by philetus2; 04-15-19 at 11:22 AM.
Instructions for posting pictures are at the top of every forum section. A key part is that you must either upload your photos to a photo hosting website or to this forum. Pictures stored on your computer's hard drive don't work as they are stuck on your hard drive and not on the web and visible to others.
I uploaded the pics to ************. Tiny pic dot comCopied the urls from tinypic to the forum uploader and the actual picture showed up in my answer post until I hit post.
Enough said, time to replace. Lowes won't even sell Whirlpool water heaters any more.