Water heater wire burning up at terminal block
High-current and high-temperature environments can cause water heater wires and female spade connections at the terminal block to burn up, trip breakers, and disconnect. This leaves people unsure whether standard wire nuts are safe to use or if they should switch to proper crimp connectors.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Replacing burned wires to match factory wiringDid this help you?
- 2SolderingDid this help you?
- 3Using a correctly sized and correctly installed wirenut, taped because it's in an applianceDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I got a call because the owner smelled smoke. The breaker was tripped. I found the water heater wire had burned up at the terminal block.”source ↗
“the wire on the female spade connection that leads to the heat element had actually burned up and disconnected”source ↗
“I'm not entirely sure if a wire nut is the best/safest way to connect these wires in such a high-current/high temperature environment?”source ↗
“Should I grab a butt connector and crimp them properly, or is the wire nut actually not an issue?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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