I have an old 80 gal electric state industry water heater, it's more than 20 years old. The breaker kept tripping then eventually the entire unit stopped working. I looked around for parts for my specific water heater model and couldn't find anything out there. What I did find out is that AO-Smith is the parent company of state and that Reliance is one of their companies.

I took some measurements, got the voltage (240) and the element wattage (4500w) and this kit looked close enough that I took a chance and got it.

The kit was an exact fit. It took me less than 15 minutes to replace the old thermostat and elements. It took much longer to drain the tank. In hind sight, I should have drained the tank the day before so that I would have been prepared to immediately replace the parts.

The 80 gal tank took about 10 minutes to fill up and 10 minutes to heat up. Now we have hot water again, thanks to this kit!

If your hot water heater is acting sketchy, don't be afraid to buy this kit and change out the elements and the thermostats. A few hints.

1) Definitely get your phone out and take pictures. Especially of how the top thermostat and element are wired.
2) TURN OFF THE POWER. Be paranoid and test the wire ends to be double sure.
3) This is a great time to flush your tank. Hook up the hose, open the bottom tap, and run the cold water supply. You'll be glad you did.
4) Purchase one of those heater element wrenches. The factory elements are in their pretty tight. You'll be glad.
5) The tank will drain a lot faster if you break the vacuum. Leave a nearby faucet open. As soon as you are confident the water level is below the top element, pull it out. That will really get things going.
6) There is some commentary on whether or not the bottom element is a fold back unit. In the version I received, it was not. Not something to worry about. They are both 4500 watt units which is presumably what you are taking out of your HW heater. The package labels one for upper and one for lower. I see no obvious difference nor should there be.

To repeat, this is an easy project. Take pictures. Disconnect the power. Make double sure you did. Go slowly. Once everything is swapped out, reverse the process. If you're paranoid, fill the tank before you wired the heater elements in case you didn't get them snugged down tight enough.

I've switched out hundreds of these in my career, but even for a novice, there's nothing to the thermostats or the elements as long as you have the proper element tool. The seller didn't respond to my messages & delivered the set in 2 weeks, NOT 2 days as promised. Price to me was also a bit too high & I'd have bought elsewhere if I'd known they'd take their own sweet time getting this to me!!

This was everything I expected it to be. It fit my water heater perfectly and the parts are super easy to replace. Just turn off your cold water valve going into water heater turn off power to tank, drain tank, replace parts, fill water BEFORE turning power back on and you'll be good. It might help to have some experience with basic tools and having a feel for working on stuff but it was very easy for me although I do have HVAC experience and electrical so maybe that helped I don't know. I have to give this a perfect score

Works great