January 5, 2024

Overnight it occurred to me that my predictions of the resistance of non-function water heating elements were inaccurate, inasmuch:

a) I have no evidence that on failure, the heating element melts, like a tungsten filament, into two sections. Hypothetically, on failure, such an element might not separate, but devolve into a connection of much higher but unpredictable resistance.

b) The water in which the failed heating element is immersed would have conductivity of its own, a function of the dissolved ions, chlorides, bicarbonates and carbonates, and of the area of fluid contact. I don't know that these functions are linear. (Eighty years ago, experimenting in the basement of the old Konnarock Medical Center, I would have found the answer. Now it's too late.)

c) If you have available, from a repair kit, a new heating element, you can measure its resistance in air and obtain a base value.

d) I hope that you are comfortable and that your day goes well.