[Richard]

Get thee some bearings on order with Roger Berke or Rudy.

Ok, so let me state what I think you are saying about the electrical situation. You are plugged into 30 amp. You have the switch in the panel above the microwave turned to electric for the AH. The light does not go out, and the AH circuit is pulling about 10 amps.

First, with only 30 amp service, you will not get the 220 to the heater as you have already stated.
Second, my red light does not go out when the AH reaches temperature. Yours is apparently wired differently.
Third, if the relay contacts are visibly not making contact, then the relay is not the reason the AH is still pulling amps.
Fourth, it appears the AH is pulling power to use the 110 V element. Is that true? Or was this just happening while you were running the gennie and had 220?

I am at a loss because this is different electrical behavior than I have experienced. Newell could have wired it differently, previous owners could have wired it differently.

In the simplest of terms a relay uses one electrical circuit to power a magnet which in turn closes a set of contacts to complete a second circuit. The advantage being the first circuit or the trigger circuit consumes very little current, can utilize very small wiring and switches, and the switch can be very far away from the piece of equipment. The contacts in the second circuit can be very robust and the wiring to those contacts very robust so that the second circuit can handle a great deal of current.

As a Newell owner, you might want to do some internet research on contacts and how they work. Newell uses a bunch of them.