Can the two elements in a typical electric water heater turn on simultaneously?
The web page http://waterheatertimer.org/How-wate...tat-works.html says:
It isn't clear to me whether the phrase "typical residential non-simultaneous" implies that "non-simultaneous" is what is typical. (It could also mean that there are two typical types of water heaters - typical simultaneous and typical non-simultaneous.)The operation for typical residential non-simultaneous 2-element tanks is more complex since the heater has two thermostats, the upper thermostat and lower thermostat. The thermostats are wired so that only one element is ON at any one time.
The upper thermostat heats top 1/3 of tank to set point, and then switches electricity to lower thermostat that finishes heating whole tank.