Remote thermostat for electric water heater.

[Jm66208]

Plumbing a carriage house that will get random use, and was thinking a remote thermostat for the water heater would avoid having to flip the breaker off/on each time it is being used. I know I've seen them before, but I cant seem to locate one. Not interested in anything WiFi, just a wall mounted unit similar to a HVAC thermostat. Any help appreciated.

 

[ImOld]

Never seen an actual external thermostat for a water heater. You can use any kind of 240v timer and have a sheduled on/off. The magical WIFI ones just use an even more magical algorithm to turn the power on/off. I suppose you could design one with an actual heat sensor plugged into the water heater so you could use a standard thermostat.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

How about a switch that controls a 2-pole contactor (big relay). The contactor interrupts the power to the WH. WH keeps its thermostats.

There are switches that will turn on for a preset time, so that the user would not have to remember to turn the power back off.

 

[Jadnashua]

It could get a little messy if you wanted to actually turn the WH setting up/down, but is much easier if you want to just turn it on/off.

This could become more critical if there were a chance of freezing. Note also, that water sitting in a WH tank that is off has the chance of growing things. Keeping it above that critical zone tends to slow or stop that from happening.

There are wireless, low-voltage, and WiFi solutions to on/off. Physically adjusting the aquastat, unless the unit is already setup for it (some tankless systems are), isn't as straightforward and is probably more dependent on the actual unit you have.