I had a rheem retex-13 (13kw) electric hot water heater installed and it requires 60-A breaker and it was put on a 2 pole double 30-A can I switch that with a 2 pole double 60-A?
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1That depends on (a) whether your panel can handle it and (b) whether your wires can handle it. Post a picture of your panel, plus closeups on the existing breaker/wires and also the wires where they are connected to the heater. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Sep 2 '20 at 23:09
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1@EdBeal Specs have the 13kW using 1 60A 240V breaker - see images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/a8/… Larger sizes bump up to multiple 40A circuits. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Sep 2 '20 at 23:41
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1the original wire was switched with a 6AWG wire – bill Sep 2 '20 at 23:45
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1What make and model is your electric panel, and can you post a photo of it showing which position the water heater breaker is in? – ThreePhaseEel Sep 3 '20 at 0:05
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1How does the water heater's manual tell you to wire it? Does it tell you to use dual 30A circuits, or are you just freestylin'? – Harper - Reinstate Monica Sep 3 '20 at 5:59
That would be paralleling. You can't do that.
Certainly, 120/240V split-phase can be confusing to the novice. But when an amperage is stated, such as 60A, that always means exactly what it says -- you never halve or double it because of the split-phase.
Being a 240V breaker/circuit merely means it has 2 poles instead of 1.
"120V per pole" is actually how you think of it, but again, never multiply/divide.
So for instance it would have been acceptable to use two 120V 60A breakers and handle-tie them... (of course 60A 120V breakers are not made, but if they were; yes).
The only possible way to make two 2-pole 30A breakers work would be a cobbled-together version of paralleling... the paralleling rules are quite narrow and don't allow anything like that, for a variety of reasons. Paralleling equipment is really special.