It must be fed through a circuit breaker or fuse. If not that is scary. Get an electrician to fix this immediately.

** I'm not there for a month in the winter, should I just turn it down to low, drain it, install a turn off switch or something else? **

I'm not in the plumbing business but I would think if there was any chance the temperatures were going to go below freezing and you decided to totally turn it off, it might have to be drained to prevent it from freezing and being damaged?

Maybe someone in the plumbing business can verify that?

Dan O.

www.Appliance411.com

The Appliance Information Site

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Yes it's certainly got it's only circuit. But the main box outside is not exactly easy to get to when there's 3ft of snow on the ground. There's no subpanel next to the water heater inside and it has no switch of it's own, hence I can't really turn it off easily.