After a technician installed a washer and dryer in my apartment, I then had no hot water for days. It finally occurred to me that it might be a circuit breaker issue (the technician had asked me for access to the circuit-breaker panel and I showed it to him but didn’t ask him what he wanted to do with it). I went to the panel and lo and behold, indeed, the circuit breaker for the hot water was in the Off position. Thinking the technician had manually set it to Off and simply forgot to turn it to On, I then flicked it to On, only to see if immediately go back to Off on its own. I did this dumbly for 10 times or so, at one point even holding the switch to On by finger-force for several seconds, baffled as to why the switch wouldn’t stay On, before finally realizing this might be a short-circuit problem and I might have been forcing the circuit breaker to complete an electrical-short-circuit against its will.
Given that it’s 3 AM and I can’t call anyone for help at this time (I tried calling the emergency maintenance apartment number but they are off too):
Is this instant-flicking-of-the-breaker-switch-back-to-Off a sign of a short circuit?
What could or would a technician - who is merely installing a washer and dryer - do that would cause a short circuit? All he had to do was plug the washer and dryer into their outlets in the wall.
It could be a defective circuit breaker, but it’s strongly suggestive of a short circuit. Tripping when there’s a short circuit and refusing to reset is the whole poin of a circuit breaker. Your action in attempting to force it to the on position was . . . unwise.
No idea, I’m afraid. But does it matter what he did? The electrician you need to call will identify the problem and sort it out.
I realise it’s 3 am, but if you’ve already been without hot water for days then the incremental disadvantage of having to wait a few more hours to get the problem addressed is surviveable.
Holding a breaker in the ON position does not override the safety mechanism. The handle is used to flip the internal mechanism but it operates independently. Breaker locks are code to allow for life-safety circuits from being accidentally shut off but still protect the circuit.
Turning a breaker back on more than once is futile. There is a short, an overcurrent situation, or the breaker is bad.
A circuit breaker has three positions, not two. There is on, off, and tripped. When the breaker trips, it interrupts the electricity. But the handle moves to an intermediate position called “tripped”. So you can tell at a glance the difference between something that was somehow turned off by a person and left off, versus one that has tripped due to overload.
I’ll also distinguish between “a short circuit” and an overload. The fact the breaker has tripped says there is either a defect in the breaker or a defect in the downstream circuit. Not all defects are “short circuits”; using terminology you don’t understand correctly can backfire when somebody else assumes you’re using it correctly.
But the OP does have a problem and needs a pro to fix it. And does need to leave the breaker in the off or tripped position until the pro gets there.
All we can say for certain from here is that there is something defective that is causing the breaker trip. That defect needs to be corrected.
I was on submarines and the general rule (maybe even a formally codified rule–an EM could probably answer) was that you get one reset. If it trips again then prepare for a long day of debug.
Then it morphed to “one reset when directed to do so by a published procedure. Otherwise leave it tripped until it can be addressed by maintenance.”
O course when you do contact maintenance once parked, they come out, push in the breaker, and if the breaker stays set and a panel fire doesn’t start immediately, they declare “problem solved” and walk away.
The suggestion to unplug the new appliances is a good one. Many large appliances require the installer to install or wire a specific power cable/plug to match your receptacle. Plugs are frequently miswired. Sometimes the installer will replace the receptacle itself. No telling exactly what the installer did at your place, but it might have created a situation that negatively impacted (ouch! sorry, pedants!) your breaker box/circuits.
A modern home circuit breaker has two, independent sensing elements that measure current: one is constantly monitoring for a current overload, and one is constantly monitoring for a short circuit. A bit more on this:
Back in the “old days,” standard home circuit breakers measured current using a bimetallic thermal element: when the current exceeded the rated current, the element would get hot, bend, and trip the breaker. And the higher the current, the faster the element would get hot, bend, and trip the breaker. Let’s say a circuit breaker was rated for 20 A. At 40 A, for example, the breaker would trip in one minute. A 80 A, the breaker would trip in one second. This is what we call “overload current,” and the thermal element works well at protecting the wiring from overload current. But what if the load is a dead short, resulting in hundreds or even thousands of amps? Testing showed this type of circuit breaker will trip when there is a dead short, but it may take 0.2 s or 0.3 s (or whatever) to do so. That’s way too long for that magnitude of current. So Square D, GE, etc. designed a new generation of circuit breakers with two sensing elements: a traditional thermal element that monitors for overloads, and a magnetic element that monitors for short circuits. When there is a short circuit, the magnetic element will open the circuit much more quickly than the thermal element.
Nowadays, of course, we are cramming even more features into circuit breakers, including GFCI and AFCI.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that standard circuit breakers used on aircraft only have a bimetallic element that monitors for overloads; they don’t have a magnetic sensor that monitors for short circuits.
The other thing I’ve seen is that if it’s tripped (the middle position), you need to push it to OFF before pushing it back to ON. Otherwise it will just go back to tripped, even if you’ve corrected the problem causing it to trip. It’s possible the OP is seeing that.
Years ago, I watched an older coworker blow one fuse after another in a clearly malfunctioning item till there were no fuses left. Like he was eating grapes or playing a slot machine, mindlessly pushed one fuse in, it glowed for a second, then dark. Pull out, insert next, maybe 8 or 10 times, dead glass fuses and those little slidey fuse boxes scattered around.
He just didn’t know what they were or did and changing the fuse was the only tool in his toolbox. Like changing a toner cartridge or battery, shrug, it usually fixes it.
I had a coworker just like this! I work in sonar and we had some old legacy equipment around that was on its last legs, and you had to treat it just right or you’d blow fuses. I literally had to keep (and hide) my own stash.
I would start here, but the short is on the water heater, which is generally an appliance with its own personal breaker, and should be unaffected by whatever the technician was doing to install the washer and dryer.
I agree with this. I would unplug both new appliances. If breaker still pops, with all appliances off, you can then tell technician to check for dislodged wires in outlets, or broken circuit breaker. (water heater should definitely be on separate breaker, they draw quite a bit on startup)
Thanks for the advice everyone. Yes, the breaker switch is in the Off position. It’s been there by default since that’s what it automatically switches back to anytime one tries to turn it on (and I haven’t tried to turn it to On since making this thread.)
To reiterate what others have said, and in my experience, tripped breakers don’t automatically switch to the Off position. They trip to the Tripped position (which is a midway position). To reset them you have to manually put them all the way into the Off position, and then put them in the On position.
I had seen my grandad do it and knew it was safe.