I recently had an electric water heater rupture and called a handyman to replace it for me as I was out of town. This is in a 3 bed, 2 bath singlewide with 4 people living in it.
The handyman and I miscommunicated as I NEVER buy the mobile home water heaters and this case proved my reason for this.
The old tank was 40 gallons so he replaced it with a 40 gallon mobile home tank. The problem is twofold.
The 40 gallon mobile home water heater has only one element (3500 watts). It cost $297 at Lowe’s. It is inferior and yet costs $100 more than the standard 40 gallon water heater that has two 4500 watt elements.
Things to keep in mind is that if you upgrade to 4500 watt elements, my research indicates that you are past the max of 80% rating on the 12 gauge wire and 20 amp breaker (which this house has).
Within 2 days the tenant called me to complain that their hot water lasted only about 7 mins into their shower. Glad I paid $100 extra for this junk mobile home tank.
I went and bought a standard 40 gallon water heater with the two 4500 watt elements. I bought 2 replacement 3500 watt elements and swapped them out. I have several homes with 50 gallon water heaters (with 10 gauge wire and 25 or 30 amp breakers where I can use these if needed) so no money lost there.
We replaced the mobile home water heater with this heater and returned the old heater to Lowe’s. They gave me my money back so I now have a better units and $100 saved.
For years I have known people who replace mobile home water heaters with stick built but they never mention wire size or breakers and this conerns me. In the past I have made upgrades to the wire and breaker if necessary (had to have an electrician do this for a set up inspection one time).
I hope to never spend extra money to buy a “mobile home” water heater again. I probably have a few that were purchased years ago or were installed prior to my buying the homes. I have only installed one such heater by intention and that was strictly due to time constraints and I kick myself for it to this day. I should have gone another route and the idea of researching swapping the elements was born. My $100 mistake is your gift.
For those in the know on such things as this please feel free to punch holes in this theory. I don’t want to give anyone poor advice.
One last comment. This idea was confirmed for me when I later inspected the original water heater in the home described above and found that it was indeed a 40 gallon heater with two 3500 watt elements in it and as best the tenant could tell me it had been in the home as long as they had (over 13 years).
Tony