Ihave a 19 gallon, electric, 120v water heater. Can I splice the two wires in it to an electrical cord that I can plug into a normal wall outlet? If so, can you tell me how, or direct me to a website which explains the process?
You didn't give enough information and shouldn't be playing with electricity if you don't know what you are doing. Neither should the untrained and unqualified people on yahoo be giving electrical advise without the proper knowledge. Somebody is going to get hurt. Call an electrician to help you out.
Yes.But make sure the cord is heavy enough to carry the amperage that is required for the water heater.There's a plaque with the volts and amps on there some where. One amp equals 100 watts. Make sure and use a 3 prong plug and be sure and attach the ground to the frame of the heater. The other 2 wires should be color coded but it doesn't matter which way you attach those.Also, make sure the outlet you use has a large enough breaker to handle the load.
If the outlet you want to plug into does not have anything else running on that circuit; you can most likely do this. You need to be sure that the total amps of the hot water heater is under 12 Amps for a 15 Amp circuit and 16 Amps for a 20 Amp circuit. If you can do this for sure than take a 12 gauge extension cord cut off the receptacle end and take the black and white wires in the cord hook it up to the two wires from the hot water heater by twisting the wires together and putting on a yellow or orange wire nut (one wire nut per connection.) Do the same for both ground or green wires if there is a ground wire coming from the water heater. Plug it in it will work.
It's really not safe. It could be done with some heavy-duty power cord wire capable of handling 20 amps, a heavy duty plug and a couple wire nuts. The wire would have to be kept short or be even heavier gauge. Buying an extension cord and cutting off the outlet end is a good idea. Many of them tell you the amperage rating of the cord for the length that it is. What can happen is the connection at the plug can become dirty, corroded, or just not fit securely causing a small contact area and lots of heat from resistance. Those heaters draw a LOT of current. Possible fire hazard. That's why the directions with those heaters specifically call for hard-wiring them into the system. You could remove the outlet and splice the wires from the heater to the wires that went to the outlet with a couple wire nuts and some tape if the circuit is capable of 20 amps. That should be OK
