Good evening all,
I am a new Sense user, today Sense identified my hot water heater. My water heater is brand new and has a upper & lower heating element both with their own thermostat. I noticed every time my water heater turns on I get matching watt usage in my “other” bubble and my water heater bubble. Is it possible sense is detecting the upper and lower heating element independently from each other? I know 100% there is nothing else running in the home.
I don’t believe both elements woud be on at the same time… most water heaters are 4500w per element.
Just out of curiosity… What wattage is showing in the bubble for the water heater?
It’s showing about 2400 watts for the water heater and around 2300 in the other bubble everytime the water heater kicks on
You have a partial detection. Sense has identified one leg of the bottom element. Since Amps=Watts/Volts, then 2400 watts identified during usage at 120 volts standard = 20 amps, which is as much as one leg can supply per breaker. Resistance water heaters have 2-pole breakers, which connect two electrical legs for a total of 40 amps. Both legs are typically on at the same time, even though in your case Sense is only labeling the usage of one. The other leg is showing up under Other.
Just be patient. It is likely that Sense will identify the other leg, perhaps as a separate device. Then if you wait some more, after seeing that both always come on and go off together, it will automatically merge the two into one device. If at least two months go by with none of this happening, then consider deleting the partial detection, which may result in a more complete detection in its place.
Water heaters have both upper and lower elements, but don’t use both at the same time. They typically use the lower element, which heats the whole tank since hot water rises. The connection to the house is at the top, and the refill at the bottom. This is to provide hot water for as long as possible under high demand. Normally, the bottom element starts working as soon as cold water refill hits the sensor. When someone takes a really long shower, the bottom element won’t be able to keep up and will give up. The top element then kicks in to keep the upper part of the tank at temperature for as long as it can.
Awesome that makes sense. You wouldn’t recommend manually merging them once the other leg is detected?
@curryiot86 , I would keep them separate for a while, just so you can see make sure they individually continue to reliably make sense. Merging them will hide some behaviors (one disappearing for a while, for instance), though you can always unmerge.