Hot water heater is getting tooooo hot

[Eskimo]

Water heater has developed an issue giving me water TOO hot. Was told to replace thermostat so I did that. It is now set on lowest setting and the water is still coming out the tap steaming (over 140). Our water has a lot of minerals in it, would draining and trying to get some of the stuff out help? Why wouldn't the thermostat shut the element off?

Ideas???

"Steamed in Missouri"

[Greg]

Hi & welcome. If it is a dual element heater you may have a bad element, usually the bottom.
Draining it can't hurt, but shut the power off first. Depending on the age you may be time & money ahead to replace it with a new unit before you have a leak.

Greg

[instead]

Yeah. I would say it is time to replace. Our water heater was doing the same right before it blew...we had to replace the flooring and half the wall panels around the heater. direct tv california. Upside is we were going to replace it anyway and already bought one of those new tank-less water heaters.

[stevieb]

We had the same problem 3 x in 30 yrs. Each time the water got scalding a few days later the heater blew. After 3rd time we put in a pan with a drain and bought the longest warrantied heater we could find. And it wasn't from a big box store!!!